


Operant Conditioning

by errihu



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Humour, Romance, Slow Burn, Three Year Gap (Dragon Ball), Too much food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-04-08 11:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 60,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19105879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/errihu/pseuds/errihu
Summary: We all want to know just how in blazes Vegeta and Bulma managed to create Trunks. This is my take at it, involving psychological conditioning, stupid sexy Saiyans, hand-wavy sciencing, feasts fit for G.R.R.M. and Saiyan princes, and crazy lemons. This is a humour story, and a love story. Three-year-gap story, mostly canon-compliant. Slow burn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, hopefully there's some people out there who like to eat their VeggieBuls because I don't know where the fuck this came from. It's a three year gap story because everyone needs a three year gap story because why the fuck not. It's also 20 chapters, finished, and edited carefully, but no doubt I will accidentally a word somewhere. Don't ride my ass on spellings - I'm Canadian and use Canadian English - before you submit a spelling error, put it into the Google and make sure you're not just American. I've used the English Anime spellings for the names (Please note, online sources present the correct spelling of Dr. Briefs as 'Dr. Brief', but it seems convention accepts Briefs. I prefer Briefs, so I've changed it). I read the manga and the only anime I watch is the abridged parody, so it's not true to anime canon. All the same, I've tried to keep this as plausible as I can.
> 
> The usual warnings apply - there is foul language and very explicit material in this story. Not a whole lot of violence for once, maybe I'm losing my edge in my old age.
> 
> Enjoy, bitches. I'll keep it to once a week.

In the wake of Frieza's aborted effort to destroy Earth, the would-be defenders of Earth scattered to their respective training grounds for three years of intensive training.

Three years. The strange boy had told them they had three years before yet another world destroying event struck – these _androids_ who had already killed him in one potential future. Three years, which must all be put into preparation, and training. Three years, in which he had to achieve something that a Saiyan achieved perhaps once in every thousand. Something which had already been achieved in his generation. _By Kakarot, that third-rate failure of a Saiyan_. Not by him.

But it _would_ be. He would achieve it. He had already made that decision, and _nothing_ would sway him from that path. He would meet those androids, and he would _kill them_ , in his Super Saiyan form. And then, he would kill Kakarot, and all that Kakarot loved, and lay waste to this idiot-riddled _rock_ , and go forth into the galaxy once more as Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans. And the galaxy would _tremble_.

Until that time… he would continue to train, to get stronger. _That woman_ had not withdrawn her offer for safe harbour when they had returned to the compound with her weakling boyfriend. She might be just a weak human with a lewd mouth, but she was a very capable engineer and inventor, as was her father. They could create the best training facilities this pitiful, ignorant planet could offer. It was time to get to work.

* * *

Three years. Three years before the end of their world, and the members of the Z-team were focused entirely on training. Tien and Chaiotzu were off blowing up some mountains together, Krillin was at Kame House, and Goku, Gohan and Piccolo had vanished entirely. Even Yamcha was focusing on training. Vegeta left the gravity room for two reasons – sleep and food, and despite her automatic flirtations and her invitation for him to stay, Vegeta was no closer to being a friend than when he was killing her other friends. She was starting to feel left out. Sure, she sometimes watched Yamcha when he trained, but there wasn't much she could do to help him. He never asked for her help. So, she patched him up when he hurt himself, and focused on her work.

Avoiding Vegeta wasn't difficult – she did have a _lot_ of work – but sometimes her dad would consult her on some theory or another, or she'd have to talk to the employees who handled grocery deliveries about bringing even _more_ food, and she'd have to think about the Saiyan. Occasionally he'd hurt himself and she'd sublimate her nervousness into concern and patch him up with the same skill and reflexive sass that she delivered to any of the other stubborn men in her life whenever they managed to bleed. He always glowered at her whenever she fussed over his injuries, but she paid it no more mind than she paid any of the others. _Yamcha_ always thanked her after and gave her a kiss on the forehead (though he always looked a little uncomfortable whenever she tended to others). Vegeta gave her a dirty glare and stalked off in silence. But she'd spent half her life mending the wounds of insanely powerful warriors and wasn't about to stop anytime soon. Besides, he was going to fight the androids, and that made him… ok, for now. For now. Plus it didn't hurt that he was hot.

Days crawled into weeks, and weeks crawled into months. Yamcha trained. Vegeta trained. Bulma worked on inventions, ensured that provisioning could keep up with the appetites of two training martial artists, and occasionally applied bandages when the guys sprang a leak. As time went on, the Saiyan continued to improve, cranking past first 10g, then 20g, 30g… on and on. It wasn't Goku's six days to 100g, but it was regular improvement.

Yamcha, on the other hand, seemed to have hit his peak. He had already been near the pinnacle of human physical potential, and because of that, there wasn't much further he could grow. Bulma didn't care, she loved her boyfriend. She'd loved him through the last 14 years, through thick and thin, through triumphs and pitfalls and his occasional indiscretions with other women. He usually came through in the end and tried as hard as he could in whatever he did. Even if he didn't end up being the one to save the world, she knew he would do his best or die trying. He had once already. Although, she would really prefer if he didn't die at all, the first time was bad enough.

Nevertheless, as Vegeta's training curve kept a steady incline and Yamcha's flatlined, something inside the human martial artist seemed to wither. He would glance at the gravity rating on the capsule where Vegeta trained every day on his way to the yard Bulma had arranged for him, and every day on his way back, and every time, his head would dip and his shoulders slump. Bulma had noticed this, but never commented, because while training, Yamcha appeared to forget all about it and focus only on his own progress. But the spark had gone out of him.

"I just don't know, B," he'd said, one night while they were cuddled on the couch in her family's home theatre, watching a stupid action movie.

"About what?" she replied. He shifted next to her, and she felt a stab of loneliness – since he had come back to life he hadn't once made love to her, and had rebuffed her efforts at initiating, claiming he wasn't feeling up to it. He claimed he still wanted her, but…

"About all of this. The androids. That boy from the future. Prince Asshole. The others…" he trailed off, but Bulma still heard the silent ' _…us_ …' hanging in the air between them.

"We just have to get stronger than the androids, that's all," Bulma said, after an uncomfortable silence.

"That's all…" Yamcha sighed, caressing her softly as she curled next to him. "That's all, she says. Get stronger. Yeah, B. I've been _trying_ , but in case you haven't noticed, it just ain't happening."

Her heart dipped. Yamcha sounded so empty. "But Yamcha," she protested, softly, "You're already one of the strongest men on the planet."

"It's not _enough_ , B," he murmured. "Besides, Goku is way stronger than me. His _kid_ is way stronger than me, and Gohan is just a kid. Vegeta is stronger than I'll _ever_ be. If these guys aren't strong enough to defeat the androids, then how the hell am _I_ supposed to do it? They're stronger than _God_."

She snorted. "Don't be silly, Yamcha. We will _be_ enough, somehow. I'm sure of it. That boy already changed the future just by coming here. We'll be enough. _You'll_ be enough. I'll be enough," she insisted.

"I don't know, Bulma," he said, quietly. She flinched at hearing her name. Yamcha called her B, Blue, Babe, Beautiful, (and occasionally Bitch when they were fighting), but rarely by her actual _name_. She reached out and found his hand, giving it a squeeze. He gave her a half-hearted squeeze back, and she let the matter drop.

One week after, Yamcha told her he was going to quit training because he'd joined a baseball team.

Vegeta went on training, oblivious to everything but the steady rise of the gravity rating of his training room.

One week after that, they broke it off by mutual consent, though Yamcha still came by several times to eat Panchy's cooking and watch movies with Bulma, with each of them in the theatre chairs, instead of together on the couch. Neither of them had the heart for a romance, but they weren't quite ready to give up a friendship.

Vegeta kept training.

One week later, the gravity room blew up while Vegeta was training. Bulma rushed to help Vegeta from the rubble, while Yamcha looked on in horror. Whether his horror was because of the accident or because Bulma's first instinct was to _help the man who had gotten Yamcha killed_ , no one knew.

After that, Yamcha stopped coming entirely.

* * *

"At 300 gravities, a 60 kg man will weigh 18,000 kgs," Dr. Briefs had protested, months ago, when Vegeta demanded he construct a room capable of it. But Vegeta had insisted, and Dr. Briefs had tried. _Tried_. At 100g, flubbing a dodge had ended with the capsule destroying itself and Vegeta getting fussed over by _that woman,_ and then waiting for repairs. He'd endured worse, yet she'd still insisted on cleaning his wounds and bandaging him up as if he was some kind of weakling who needed nursed back to health. She'd sat in some kind of vigil when he'd been recovering from the gravity room. She never reacted to his pointed glares, just snapped something about being more careful and taking a break before he destroyed that 'sexy body' of his.

A break. Yeah, _right_. _A_ _break_. _Kakarot_ had gotten to 100 gravities in _six days_. Vegeta had only recently hit that stage, after _months_. And yet, achieving Super Saiyan seemed as far away as ever. He couldn't take _a break_ , not now. Which was why he was currently pacing outside Dr. Briefs' office. It had been a month. He was annoyed with the lack of high-powered training.

"Come on in, Vegeta. I can't think with you doing that," Dr. Briefs called out. Vegeta strode in, standing in front of the man's desk. The small, furry creature the scientist kept as a pet meowed a greeting from the man's shoulder, and Dr. Briefs idly scratched its head, before tapping ash off his cigarette. "How can I help you?"

Vegeta scowled. Dr. Briefs should already know this. Human communication was annoying with all the redundant formalities and time-wasting dance around pleasantries. "I want to know when the gravity chamber will be ready again," he stated, trying not to snap. The other man didn't generally seem to notice or care about Vegeta's general cold and superior attitude, but Vegeta recognized that he should probably not bite the hand that helped him train. Besides, he'd already learned that the man simply didn't register threats or acknowledge Vegeta's rage in any way whatsoever. There was no point yelling. The outcome wouldn't change. The man was unflappable.

"I've been working on that every spare moment I have. I wanted to update the design; the unit shouldn't have failed like that. Give me at least a few more days to work out the kinks," Dr. Briefs replied, absolutely unfazed by the glowering Saiyan.

Vegeta ground his teeth and sighed. He scratched at a scabbed-over wound idly, bits of dead skin flaking off under his nails. "What can be done to make it _faster_?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

Before Dr. Briefs could respond, a voice behind him interrupted. "Hey Dad, have you seen V—oh, there you are, Vegeta!" Both Dr. Briefs and Vegeta looked to see the blue-haired woman entering the office, holding a bundle of something in her arms. Vegeta had felt her coming – all the people here had incredibly weak power levels, but he still tried to make a habit of tracking every ki signature he could. He just hadn't realized she was heading for the office – he thought maybe she was going to the workshop across the hall.

"Oh, hey, Bulma, dear. You're just in time. Vegeta wants us to go faster on rebuilding the gravity chamber. I was thinking you could take a look at my designs, see where we could improve the containment efficiency, perhaps work out a safety system to deactivate it in the case of a missed shot so that we don't have to completely rebuild…" Vegeta tuned out the man's rambling, opting to stare querulously at the woman, wondering what was in her arms and why she was searching for _him_.

"Just a moment, Dad. Vegeta! I went by your room to give you this, but you weren't _resting_. You should have been _resting_!" She shoved the bundle at him, and he took it with a noncommittal grunt.

"What is it, woman?" he demanded.

"Why don't you _open it_? I swear, if the lot of you meatheads didn't all look so good shirtless, I would have found smarter company to run with years ago," she muttered, acidly. Vegeta had to suppress a facial tic. But he turned his attention to the bundle in his hands nonetheless and opened it. Inside was a new suit of armour, styled after his old armour – same look, same colours. Vegeta was silently impressed – she'd gotten a lot of the little details right.

"Well?" the woman demanded, when he didn't comment.

"It's armour," he responded, because it obviously was.

"Yes, and I made it. Go try it on, and then go destroy it, but make sure you don't destroy _this_ part here," she pointed to an addition on the armour that hadn't been part of the original design, "because it's taking metrics so I can improve the design. Keep the bag to put the remains in, I want them back to deconstruct."

He blinked. It was quite possibly the first time someone who _wasn't_ in Frieza's army told him to _go destroy something_. "Whatever, woman," he grumbled, and started heading for the exit. _Go destroy it_ , indeed. Well, he would. He'd find some out-of-the-way forest or canyon or some shit and destroy the _shit_ out of it.

"And try not to come back with any more punctures or lacerations!" she barked as he exited. He grimaced.

"Let Panchy know if you won't be back for dinner," Dr. Briefs cheerfully called as he left.

"I'll be back for dinner," Vegeta stated. Miss _dinner?_! Not a chance. Those two boffins were already talking about some immensely boring, irrelevant technical detail. He picked up that it had to do with the gravity room and was pleased. Maybe it would go faster with the woman there. He wasn't going to say it to Dr. Briefs, but he thought Bulma might actually be the smarter of the two.

She was definitely the prettier of the two, shapely and with exotic colouring. Pity she was just a shitty human with no power at all. And friends with that third-rate dipshit, Kakarot. And consorting with that weakling. Come to think of it, where was the weakling? Usually he trailed behind the woman. Oh well, it wasn't like any of them _mattered_. Vegeta had armour to destroy. He left.

"Take a look at this, Bulma," Dr. Briefs said, after the Saiyan had exited. She peered at his notes, eyes flickering as she rapidly scanned the lines. Scratch meowed, and hopped onto the desk for pats. Both Briefs automatically reached out to pat the kitty. One couldn't _not_ pat the kitty. Dr. Briefs lit another cigarette.

"I see what you mean, Dad. That containment system has got to be beefed up if we want to bring it to 300 gravities like Mister Badman asked. I think we should plan for higher than that, though."

"You're right, I don't think any of your friends ever learned to stop at 'enough'. Let's see how high we can crank it before the containment fails," Dr. Briefs agreed.

"I think I can work out a safety, too, for if he goes down again. He was badly hurt last time. If he goes down, we need the system to shut off and go to Earth standard so that I can get in and pull him out for medical help. Here, let me make a copy of your notes, and I'll work on containment and safety like you asked, if you want to take on scaling the gravity field. That's the more involved task, I think."

"Sounds good to me, Bulma. Let me know when you have some progress. See you at dinner," Dr. Briefs smiled through his moustache.

"Love you, Dad," she grinned, giving her father a peck on the head before heading off to make copies.

"Love you, sweetie. Oh, by the way, you should know that operant conditioning works on your grumpy friend," he remarked.

Operant conditioning? Oh… right. She smirked. "He cut the threats?"

Her father just smiled, absently patting Scratch.


	2. Chapter 2

It took longer to find a place to destroy the armour than it took to actually destroy the armour. Vegeta was impressed with the fit, and the comfort. The woman had real talent. There were places on his body where Frieza's mass-produced armour had always chafed him, but the armour Bulma had constructed had none of those spots. It was almost as if it had been vacuum-formed just for _him_. It was perfectly form-fitting and did not hinder his range of movement in any way.

Dutifully, he proceeded to systematically destroy the armour, simulating hits from opponents by throwing loose boulders, ki balls, and various other detritus and then speeding past to get hit by them. The plating took more punishment than his old armour had, but eventually succumbed to the abuse. The fabric portion didn't stand up to much. Mission accomplished, one set of armour turned into fragments and scraps. He scoured the canyon for any loose bits and bundled the whole broken mess in the bag the woman had provided, and then looked at the sun.

Oh shit, he'd better hurry back and have a shower and put on the stupid clothes that Panchy insisted must be worn at the dinner table. Bulma's air-headed mother was a stickler for Earth etiquette, and Vegeta had learned the hard way that if he didn't do exactly what she wanted, she'd leave him to fumble through the kitchen to cook for _himself_ or eat leftovers _cold_. And Panchy was a _very good cook_ , far better than Vegeta. And he liked hot food.

He streaked across the sky like a meteor, heading back for the compound. On his way to his quarters, he dumped the bag of broken bits outside the woman's quarters, and then headed straight for the shower. Ten minutes later, he threw a white dress-shirt over an undershirt and some decent pants and made his way down to the dining area. The woman and Dr. Briefs were already seated, and Panchy was bringing out food. _Just in time…_ he didn't dare be _late_ , or Panchy might not _feed him_!

* * *

"So glad you could join us, Vegeta," the blonde lady chirped, as Vegeta slid into his customary seat, across the table from Bulma.

"Thank you, Panchy," he murmured.

"Did you destroy it?" Bulma demanded, eyes flicking over his form, looking for damage. His hair was wet, it was clear he had just showered, which was good. The smell of him after any kind of workout was always too distracting, reeking of testosterone, musk, and sweat. Thank God her mom had insisted he be _presentable_ when attending her dinner table. She frowned, noticing a few red patches seeping through the white shirt. She would have to address that after dinner.

"Yeah," he acknowledged, staring at his plate fixedly, obviously forcing himself to be patient while Panchy dished out. Bulma had noticed that his behaviour at the table had improved significantly over the months, but after her father's comments in the lab, she watched him with a new eye. "What's left of it is outside your quarters, including the sensor. I didn't destroy that."

"Thanks, Hot Stuff, you're the best!" she grinned, noting his features freeze at her words, though he didn't look up from the plate.

"No shop talk at the dinner table," Panchy protested. Vegeta blanched slightly, eyes flicking to the blonde, nervously.

"Sorry, mom," Bulma apologized.

"My apologies, Panchy," the Saiyan murmured.

Panchy dished out, piling Vegeta's plate much higher than the rest. At his muttered "Thank you, Panchy," her mother piled another two chicken parm cutlets onto the plate. Bulma remembered what her dad had said in his office and tried not to smirk. Her mom might be a ditz, but she and her father had raised two kids and kept countless pets. Panchy knew a thing or two about behaviour training. It was clear that food rewards were a powerful motivator for the Saiyan prince.

"Thank you, Panchy," said Dr. Briefs as he received his share.

"Thanks, Mom," Bulma said. Her eyes darted to Vegeta, who was eyeing Panchy through the corners of his eyes, still facing his plate, practically vibrating with impatience, waiting for her to sit. No one would touch a fork until she sat, on pain of being ordered away from the dinner table. Bulma observed this with growing amusement.

Panchy's shapely behind descended elegantly into the chair.

Vegeta waited precisely until the lady of the household had picked up her own fork before going for his own.

Dinner started in silence – conversation would happen after the edge had come off the hunger. Vegeta didn't usually participate, speaking only to _very politely_ ask for more food, which Panchy would dole out to him with a benevolent smile. Bulma, intent on surreptitiously observing Vegeta at the dinner table, noted that she _always_ gave him another scoop or serving of whatever she was dishing out whenever he thanked her. As a consequence, Vegeta _always_ thanked Panchy.

Bulma was going to laugh her ass off, _after_ she got back to her rooms. Seriously, how had she missed the fact that her parents were conditioning Vegeta into _table manners_ , of all things?

The Briefs ate at a regular rate, and Vegeta somehow packed away as much as the entire family three times over, without being overtly impolite or seeming rushed. They talked about inconsequentialities – mostly Panchy's society news. Halfway through the main course, Bulma's phone dinged three times in quick succession from the pocket of her short shorts. She jerked at the sound, but one look at her mother convinced her that whatever it was could wait. Panchy could and would deny dessert if she touched her phone at the table, and Bulma knew her mother had cooked up something special today, she'd smelled it when heading down to her father's office.

"When will Yamcha be back for dinner, Bulma? I need to know how much I should make," Panchy said, as the meal drew to a close. Bulma flinched, and then flushed slightly when she realized that _everyone's_ eyes were on her – including Vegeta's.

"Uh…" she extemporized, "I don't know…"

"Well, make sure you tell me, so I can make enough for everyone. I do so love feeding young men and their healthy appetites!" Panchy flashed a smile at Vegeta, who eyed her cautiously and attempted something that looked like it might have been intended to be a pleasant smile in return. His eyes flicked back to Bulma, a quizzical knot forming in his brow, as though he'd just realized that Yamcha hadn't been at the Briefs' dinner table for a while.

"I will, Mom, don't worry. Do you want help clearing the dishes?" Bulma quickly changed the subject.

"Thank you, darling, I would like the help. You can help me bring out the surprise," Panchy beamed.

Through the corners of her eyes, Bulma saw Vegeta's face perk with interest at the mention of a _surprise_ at the dinner table. Panchy's dinner surprises never failed to please. Especially dessert.

She helped her mother clear the wreckage, noting Vegeta's polite "Thank you for the meal, Panchy," as she did. The Saiyan's eyes were on her mother, as if trying to divine what the surprise could be. He sat very still and properly in his seat, back straight, hands politely in his lap.

The kitchen was huge, much of it given over to professional cooking implements to fuel her mother's passion for making food. There were three German Chocolate cakes on a counter, smelling divine. Bulma grinned at the sight and helped get the cleanup bots going on doing the cooking dishes, while she put the family's dishes in the dishwasher and packaged up leftovers for lunches. She went about tidying alongside her mother, who still seemed to prefer doing things the old-fashioned way. There were a lot of leftovers – Panchy had cooked enough for even Vegeta to have lunch the next day. The domestic tranquility of the act was calming, and Bulma concentrated on setting everything to order while her mother made the tea. That was, until Panchy spoke again.

"Did something happen with Yamcha, Bulma dear?"

Bulma dropped the fork she was putting into the dishwasher with a clatter, and then cursed and went to pick it up. "We broke up, Mom," she sighed, slotting the piece of cutlery into its spot with a clank and jangle.

"Oh dear, Bulma, sweetie, you didn't tell me! Why didn't you _tell me_ , I'm your _mother,_ " Panchy protested, voice soft. Her mother's empathy resurrected feelings Bulma had managed to bury under mountains of work.

"I had other things to worry about," Bulma said, softly, pausing in her cleaning. The kitchen was shimmering through a veil of unshed tears. She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. "Besides, it was mutual. We're still friends."

"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry." Her mother pulled her into an embrace. Bulma wiped again and sniffled once, hugging her mother tight. "It'll be ok. Yamcha was a nice boy, but those childhood romances don't always survive adulthood. You'll find a nice, strong, hard-working man to marry and give me beautiful grandchildren." She patted Bulma on the back.

"Mom…" Bulma sighed.

"Maybe that Vegeta, now, he's a little short, but he's a striking man, works hard, and he carries himself well," Panchy mused.

"Mom!" Bulma protested, pulling away, feeling her face go hot. "No _way_! He's an asshole!" He _was_. A hard-bodied, sexy asshole, who practically reeked of self-assurance and badassery. Who had come here to destroy her planet and kill everything she loved. And, who somehow stuck around to defend the planet because it might mean a good fight.

"He can be trained, you know," Panchy continued quietly, tone teasing.

That brought a snort from Bulma. "Operant conditioning," she chuckled, under her breath. Panchy grinned and winked conspiratorially.

"Speaking of which, we should get dessert out before he eats the table or something," her mother joked. Bulma quietly agreed and retrieved the gold-chased porcelain plates and cups, and silver forks, taking them out to the dining area while her mother cut the cakes.

Vegeta sat patiently at the table with her father, waiting while she put out the place settings for dessert. His eyes traced her idly while she laid out plates, teacups, and cutlery at his spot, before flicking back to the door to the kitchen. She tried to avoid feeling self-conscious under his gaze. Seriously, he was always so intense. Didn't the man ever relax?

Out came Panchy with a tray loaded with cake and tea. Bulma resumed her seat while her mother served everyone. Vegeta eyed the cake with obvious interest, thanking Panchy and receiving a second huge slice for his gratitude.

Bulma wondered if Vegeta had consciously realized what her mother was doing. Either way, the effect on Vegeta's behaviour at the dinner table was _astounding_. She bit her lip to prevent a giggle, and then joined the rest in enjoying the cake when her mother finally sat down and went to take her first bite.

It was heavenly.

"MmmmmMMMMM! Mom, this is better than _sex_ ," Bulma exclaimed, grinning at her mother. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Vegeta look at her with that frozen face of his, at the remark.

Panchy grinned back, "Good chocolate usually is, dear!" her mother agreed.

"Good cake, Panchy," Dr. Briefs muttered between mouthfuls.

"…Very good, thank you, Panchy," Vegeta muttered quietly, with a brief look of self-conscious discomfort. He did not break eye contact with his plate. Bulma smirked and continued working on her slice. Her mother beamed at the obvious enjoyment of her kitchen prowess.

Her family members finished their slices and lingered over tea, enjoying the peace of the evening. Vegeta finished his and sat back.

"There's more if you'd like it, Vegeta," Panchy offered.

"Yes, please, Panchy," he responded, and then glared at his plate. Bulma had no doubt he was recalling her comment and realized that he'd probably never look at a slice of chocolate cake again without thinking about her making comments about sex. This man was strong enough to annihilate her and her planet with minimal effort and yet the way he reacted to her offhand flirtation and lewd comments was strangely hilarious to her. She cleaned up the cake plates and forks for everyone else and then relaxed, enjoying the tea and the coolth of the evening, while her father read a science mag and her mother did a crossword in a dog-eared book of puzzles. Outside, cicadas were buzzing. It was peaceful. She could think about what she was going to do to that containment system.

He was almost through his third helping of cake when her phone dinged insistently and then dinged again 30 seconds later. She sighed and excused herself, heading off down the hall. She was halfway to her room when she pulled out the phone, intending to read while she walked. One of her civilian friends had been blowing up her phone with text messages. This had better be important…

When she saw the photo of Yamcha with another girl, locking lips, she stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the hallway, heartache ripping through her. Sure, they had broken up, but shouldn't he have at least had _some kind of cooldown period_ before moving on? It just reminded her of what an unfaithful bastard he'd always been. It felt like those 14 years hadn't even mattered.

The tears began to flow unbidden from her eyes as she stared at the screen.


	3. Chapter 3

The food was always excellent, even if he had to tread extra carefully around Panchy to get it. The blonde always gave him enough to eat if he was careful to speak quietly and wait for her strange food ritual cues. And it was _so good_. _Way_ better than anything he'd ever scrounged together on the surface of a planet while doing a mission (which usually consisted of whatever fauna he could kill and set fire to), and much better than the slop in mess halls and ship heaters of Frieza's army. Since coming to the woman's house, he'd eaten well, well enough to keep his energy stores sufficient for the high intensity training regime he was pushing on himself.

After consuming enough food to feed the Briefs for three nights, he decided he had enough to take the edge off, though he was definitely intrigued when Panchy announced a surprise. Panchy's edible surprises were always worth sticking around for.

He waited more or less patiently for whatever surprise Panchy was preparing, while Dr. Briefs flipped through some magazine. Vegeta couldn't yet read the script used by this society, but he was making progress in identifying individual symbols. He couldn't parse out the meaning of 'POPULARMECHANICS', but the context of the photos indicated it was some kind of entertainment for engineers and scientists.

He could hear the clattering and bustling of the women in the kitchen, and the low hum of conversation, though he couldn't make out the words. At least, he couldn't, until he could hear the woman's outburst of "Mom! No _way_! He's an _asshole_!" Since he was usually the one she reserved that word for, he guessed they must be talking about him. He tried to listen but couldn't catch anything.

The woman emerged from the kitchen with a tray loaded with elegant dishes and cutlery and started setting them at each person's spot. When she came to his spot, he caught a whiff of something familiar overlaid on her usual mix of flowers and her own natural scent. He ought to know that smell, it was a smell he had frequently caused over the years, wreaking havoc and devastation across the galaxy. It was a smell as familiar as blood. Tears.

He looked her over quickly but couldn't see any damage or any sign of what might have caused her to be upset, and she didn't seem to be actively distressed, so he decided to ignore it. He wondered if it was related to the outburst. Certainly, he had always prided himself in being an upsetting person, but he hadn't ever tried to harm her personally. She was useful, even if embarrassingly vulgar. It would also be a waste of time to kill someone so weak when he wasn't just simply destroying _everything_.

The treat looked interesting and smelled even more interesting – it was brown and had a smell that suggested mildly psychoactive plant alkaloids of some sort. It was an attractive scent that grabbed his attention. Panchy gave him two very large slices, much bigger than the slices she doled out to the rest of her family or took herself.

When the Briefs matriarch went to sample her own slice, he dug in with the rest of them. The taste was… interesting. Rich, and yes, definitely some kind of plant alkaloid with some kind of mild euphoric effect. Complimentary to Saiyan biology, it seemed. Very good. His eyes flicked over to the woman as she moaned at the dessert and announced that it was better than sex. Resolutely, he dropped his eyes to his portion and made his face a frozen mask at the comment. Complimentary to Earthling biology as well, apparently. Good enough to thank Panchy for.

It was _good_ , but he wasn't sure if it had anything to do with sex, at least not any sex that _he'd_ had. Those episodes had been rare enough – the occasional visit to pleasure women of various species after successful missions to blow off some steam. Scratching an itch, nothing more, and not something he felt the need for very often. This 'chocolate', as Panchy named it, was nothing like sex, but it was enjoyable in its own right. Yes, there was definitely a mild euphoric effect to the substance. He decided he liked it, which was fortunate, because Panchy had clearly considered his appetite when she decided how much of the dessert to make.

He was pleased to accept seconds and thirds when offered by Panchy, though every time he did so he couldn't help but remember the woman's moan and comment. Seriously, this was good, but it wasn't _that_ good. Unless Terran biology was significantly different in its reaction to alkaloids like this one, and he didn't think so. Panchy and Dr. Briefs weren't reacting like that. Maybe the woman just _really_ enjoyed this stuff a lot. She was prone to hyperbolic outbursts, particularly lewd ones.

When her communicator made its alert noise, he paid it no mind. Such things happened frequently with these people, and they spent a lot of time on their communicators, which strangely did other tasks besides just communicate. She excused herself and he finished his dessert, deciding against more.

"Thank you for the excellent meal, Panchy," he said to the matron.

"You're welcome, Vegeta, it's always a pleasure to cater to healthy appetites," she replied. He excused himself from the table, wished them a pleasant evening (it was part of the ritualized pleasantries he was learning to follow around these people), and headed off to his quarters.

Turning a corner into the hallway that led to both his set of chambers and the woman's, he stopped at the sight of the woman herself, standing in the middle of the hallway, hunched over her communicator. The smell of tears reached him again, as did the sound of her sniffle. She was shaking. Some bad news from the communicator? Some disaster, perhaps, which may have befallen one of her many friends? Perhaps Kakarot? No, too much to hope for. Concerned, he padded closer, the thick pile of the carpet hiding the sound of his bare feet. She didn't seem to notice.

At least not until he pulled the communicator from her startled hand and examined the contents, ignoring her squawk of outrage. It appeared to be a text conversation with someone else, which he couldn't parse, but there was a picture. _That much_ , he understood. It was a picture of the weakling man. Kissing a woman who was definitely not her. He blinked.

"I'll kill him for you, if you want," he stated calmly, allowing her to snatch the device back from his hands. He met her alien blue eyes, which were sparking with fury and bright with tears. He wasn't sure if the fury was at the weakling's lack of faithfulness or at the fact that he'd taken her communicator.

"No, dumbass, we broke it off!" she snapped.

What the fuck did _that_ mean? Broke what off? He quirked a brow. At his puzzled look, she rolled her eyes. "We broke up. Split. Called the whole thing off. We're not together anymore."

Oh. _Oh_. Before or after the weakling started doing that, he wondered. "So why does it matter if he's doing that with some hussy?"

She took a step back, shoving her communicator in her pocket and thrusting her fists at her sides. "Because he should have some _shame_ , that's why! We were together _fourteen years_!"

He opened his mouth to ask why that mattered, but she'd apparently caught sight of something on his person that flipped her attitude. Before he could utter his remark, she had grabbed his collar and started stomping off down the hall. "And you're _injured!_ There's blood all over your shirt! This needs to be cleaned up and bandaged. It's a good thing I perfected that enzymatic cleaner years ago, this shirt is too nice to throw out due to your sexy dumbass self bleeding all over it."

What? He'd showered. Those little cuts and scrapes had stopped actively bleeding long ago. But he let himself be drawn down the corridor to his quarters. Her power was tiny, but her rage was impressive, almost as striking as a Saiyan's. Amazing how she could flip from grief at her former mate's ease in forgetting her, to flat out fury over a little bit of blood that had already dried from wounds that were already healing.

She shoved open the door to his quarters and dragged him into the bathroom, where there was a medical kit. It wasn't the first time she'd done this. This weak little woman always insisted on fussing over him whenever he took even the slightest scratch. She did it for others, too, but damnit, he was the Prince of all Saiyans. He shouldn't need some little blue-haired harridan to tend to his wounds. They'd heal fine on their own and he'd have some scars to show how strong he was.

Wordlessly he sat on the toilet seat like he always did, while she silently undid the buttons on the shirt and then peeled it off him, followed by the undershirt. The undershirt had stuck to some of the wounds, and naturally this started some of them bleeding again, which pulled an exasperated hiss out of her. Apparently, she was too upset for lewd comments, this time. Given the state she was in, he wasn't sure it was an improvement.

"These need to be cleaned," she grouched.

"I showered earlier!" he protested, speaking for the first time since offering to kill the weakling. Furious blue eyes met his.

"That's not _cleaning a wound!_ " she snarled, pulling out ointment and a swab. " _This is_!" And then she started swabbing the cuts, with more force than usual. Not that he felt it much more than to register that she _was_ using more force than usual. It stung slightly, as always, and as always, he paid it absolutely no mind, sitting in perfect stillness. She worked with businesslike silence and concentration that he had never seen in her previously. It was weird. She still smelled a bit like tears, and her miniscule ki was unsettled.

She stood and inspected him with angry eyes and lips pressed tight together, furiously swabbing any area that showed any sign of damage. Then she slapped adhesive gauze patches on each site, clearly not making any attempt to be gentle. Not that it mattered, she couldn't hurt him, but usually she was a lot more solicitous when tending his wounds. Once the task was complete, she cleaned up and then turned to leave as she always did, snatching up his soiled shirts from the floor. Without thinking, he reached up to grab her wrist gently.

She froze, half turning to stare wordlessly at him. He froze, too, wondering what the fuck had just possessed him to do that. He looked into her eyes, wondering what the heck _that_ was that he saw in them right now. He could feel her pulse race under his grip.

He took a breath, not breaking eye contact. "I mean it," he said, almost softly. "Say the word, and I'll end him."

The woman made a little sound and trembled, her eyes getting shiny again and the smell of tears hitting him with renewed intensity. "That won't be necessary," she said, quietly, after a moment's breath. He relaxed his grip on her cool, soft wrist, still searching her glossy eyes for signs of… something. He wasn't sure what. "Thanks, Vegeta. I'll try to get the containment field fixed for you tomorrow, Dad's working on the gravity scaling. Goodnight." Her voice was soft and tired as she pulled away from his hand. He'd never heard her like that before. Bellowing out her fury, yes. Cheerfully describing some technological wonder, certainly. Making suggestive comments in taunting tones, all the fucking time. But never all quiet and… hurt, like that.

"Goodnight," he murmured in return, at her retreating form. If she heard, she didn't acknowledge. He sat in silence for several minutes on the toilet seat, looking at his reflection in the mirror, wondering what the fuck had just happened. Wondering why he'd grabbed her wrist, like that, and why he'd felt the need to… to _comfort_ her. Why it had bothered him to see her so obviously distressed. She was just a loud, annoying, crude woman, one so pathetically weak that he could crush her without any effort whatsoever. One whom he actually had to make an effort to _not_ crush, in fact, she was _that_ weak.

After a long moment, he let out a soft breath and rose to pack up the med kit and put it back into its easily accessible spot. He flicked off the lights and headed to bed.

* * *

Bulma shuffled down the hallway to her own rooms, her emotions and thoughts in a whirl. Pain at the ease with which Yamcha had discarded _fourteen years_ with her warred with incredulity over Vegeta's offer to kill her former beau, the annoyance of patching up the Saiyan's injuries, and feelings of loneliness and having been left behind by all her friends. Somewhere in the corner of her mind, yet another part of her was fixing the containment field. And somewhere else, insistently, a recollection of the heat of his hand on her wrist, so gentle and yet so iron-strong, and the unreadable look in his black eyes, kept barging its way into her mind. She'd touched him plenty, patching him up, but Vegeta had never once touched her, except in an attempt to fend off her medical ministrations.

Outside her door was a dirty bag filled with the remains of his armour. She stopped to pick it up and then carried it into her little work room and dropped it by one of the clearer work surfaces. She spritzed the blood-smudged shirt all over with blood-removing enzymatic cleaners, and then tossed it into a tub she kept for treating the bloody, soiled clothing of her friends. A night of soaking and it should come out white and pristine again without destroying the high quality, delicate fibres; her formula always worked. Stupid, sexy Saiyan, and his stupid insistence on getting injured and then refusing medical treatment.

Then, she tiredly pulled her hair out of its pinned ponytail, yanked off her shorts and top and tossed them on the floor of her bedroom, and gave her head a shake. She slipped on her favourite nightgown and killed the lights, curling into her bed in the darkness. The tears which had been building up in her eyes slid down her cheek onto her pillow. And Bulma cried herself to sleep in silence, mourning fourteen years lost with the true death of anything between her and Yamcha, and her uncertain future, while visions of Vegeta's black eyes looking into hers and feelings of his hand inexplicably intruded on her mind.


	4. Chapter 4

The morning dawned cool, with Bulma's face all puffy and her eyes sore from crying. Feeling sorry for herself, she washed her face, silently cursing herself for going to bed without removing her makeup. Then she brushed her teeth and put her hair in an aggressive bun, deciding that she didn't need to shower _that_ badly. Then, she threw on something comfortable. The sight of a shirt in her closet, left behind by Yamcha ages ago and kept squirreled away for those moments when she needed his scent, threatened to start her off again. Ruthlessly, she pulled it out of the closet and tossed it in the bathroom trash.

On her way down to breakfast, she grabbed her notes, slide rule, calculator, and a pencil from the small workroom that was between her bedroom and the hallway. She had offices in the basement where her father worked, and all kinds of labs and workshops, but she often preferred to work in the little room up here.

Panchy insisted on no business talk at the table during the evening meal but didn't care all that much if her family members worked through breakfast or lunch. There were no comments Bulma's small pile of engineering detritus at the table.

She opted for black coffee and a slice of leftover cake that had somehow missed the Wrath of Vegeta the night before. She sat at the table in the morning sunlight, with one leg dangling off the chair and the other pulled up bent against her, foot on her seat, and took bites of cake and sips of coffee with one hand while scratching notes and pecking at her calculator with the other. Panchy made no comment on her daughter's choice of breakfast, only bustled away cooking up a mega stack of pancakes and bacon for Vegeta's inevitable hunger.

* * *

When his stomach dragged him down to the dining room, barefoot in sweatpants and white undershirt, that was the sight that greeted him. Her eyes flicked up to note his presence briefly, before focusing back on her arcane science work. He grunted a perfunctory greeting and sat at his usual spot, staring fixedly at a knot on the wooden table. The evidence of her emotional distress was everywhere on her, from the puffiness of her eyes and the remnants of smeared mascara, to her weird pose, to the sweatpants and loose, stomach-covering tank top that he had no idea she possessed since she seemed to make an effort to stuff herself into the smallest clothes she could find, to the stray, curly lock of blue hair dangling from the side of her head that had somehow missed the lump she had forced the rest of it into. And she smelled more like herself than like flowers, which had never happened before, even if he quite frankly preferred it to the flowers. He'd never seen the woman like this before, and it was vaguely concerning.

"Good morning, Vegeta, dear!" Panchy chirped, emerging from the kitchen in a long nightdress and apron, with a stack of those flat fried things she called 'pancakes,' and a cup of the hot black bean water with the stimulant alkaloid. Coffee. Her hair was in those weird cylinders that she sometimes wore in the morning. She still looked strangely ageless, a trait that had always puzzled Vegeta. Human women seemed to age more rapidly than Saiyan women did, save for Panchy.

"Good morning, Panchy," he muttered, reflexively, while the matron of the house slid the food in front of him. "Thank you."

"I'm a sucker for a cute, hungry boy," Panchy beamed, and she actually _ruffled his hair_. Vegeta froze. Across the table, the blue-haired harridan quirked an eyebrow, and took a sip of coffee. Vegeta tried not to make an expression. Panchy whirled back into the kitchen, emerging with a tray of toppings for the pancakes and a plate loaded high with bacon. "I have more, don't you worry!" she chirped.

"Thank you, Panchy," he said, reaching for the fork, feeling rattled. This whole family was nuts.

Dr. Briefs arrived shortly thereafter, wearing striped pyjamas, the cat on his shoulder, and reading a newspaper while he walked. Panchy kissed her husband and handed him a coffee and a plate of food, which he accepted with a smile and a cheerful comment. Panchy came out with her own plate and sat down, book of puzzles on the table beside her plate. Long slender fingers scratched a pencil across the paper as she ate. Smoke from Dr. Briefs' cigarette curled through the sunbeam that hit the centre of the table.

The Briefs were a quiet bunch at breakfast.

It suited Vegeta just fine, who focused on getting as many _delicious_ calories down as he could in between sips of black, bitter burned bean water, as fast as he could, without triggering Panchy's commentary on his manners. Almost against his will, he caught himself glancing at the blue-haired woman throughout his morning meal. She didn't appear to notice through her focus on her work, but he was still unsettled by his own actions.

He started to rise from his place, intending to get more from the kitchen, but Panchy jumped to her feet and did it for him, insisting that he was a guest and shouldn't serve himself. More coffee and pancakes followed, along with his thanks. Another hair ruffle, this time with a giggle on Panchy's part. Across the table, the woman made a slightly incredulous face, at her mother's actions, or perhaps at the fact that Vegeta was just taking it without comment. He studiously froze his face and grit his teeth. If Panchy wasn't such a good cook...

"Mom, I'm having more cake," she announced, rising from her seat.

"Help yourself, sweetie-pie," Panchy smiled beatifically, resuming her seat.

The woman returned with more cake and coffee, idly consuming both without breaking stride from her work.

Vegeta finished four more plates, still trying to stop himself from looking at the woman. Then he rose to leave to find someplace to train for the day.

"Don't you _dare_ mar your perfect skin, or I'll _spank_ that tight ass of yours," the woman snapped out, mouth partially covered by her cup of coffee. She didn't even look up from her work.

Vegeta stiffened, taking in a small breath, flashed her a glare, and left, feeling strangely relieved to hear such typical vulgarity from her.

* * *

Bulma sighed, shifting in her seat, after he left. She had felt his eyes on her nearly all breakfast, and it was disturbing her concentration. She took another fortifying sip of coffee and renewed her focus on her scribbled notes. A stray remembrance of his eyes and hand the night before crossed her mind unbidden, and her pencil lead broke. She muttered a quick curse and grabbed the sharpener, trying to resume her previous thought about the containment field.

"What if we went to a toroidal ring, or a set of toroidal rings, instead of attempting to contain it within one unbroken shell?" she asked her father, without raising her head from her work.

He turned the page and shook his newspaper, taking another puff on his smoke. "Could work, use gyroscopic configuration. Might increase the stability a lot, actually. Model it, Bulma."

"Yeah," she agreed, pencil furiously scratching. The idea was a good one. The last bites of cake tasted _excellent_. She scraped the traces of icing from the plate with her fork, finishing it off, and cleared her own and Vegeta's dishes on autopilot. She gathered up her work. "I'll be back."

"Tell me how it works, angel," Dr. Briefs said.

"Will do." Bulma headed for her workroom.

By a little past noon, she had it modeled out entirely. The idea was excellent, all the sims showed no less than a tenfold increase on the field strength over the current configuration. It was more than enough to satisfy _her_. She ran the statistics, bundled the CAD files, and sent them off to her dad.

"Incoming," she typed out rapidly at her workstation, using the Capsule Corporation's internal instant messenger, CCIM.

Ten seconds later the console beeped her father's reply. "Received," it said. There was a pause of a few minutes, then dots popped up, indicating he was typing. "Good work, my darling little genius, this is a breakthrough for my own work. I think we can probably resume construction on the new design tomorrow," the message sprang up, announcing itself with a _bwoop_.

"That's great, Dad. Make sure you install an automatic off procedure; I'll handle the instrumentation and controls. Leave me some sensor space. About 1000 cm3, at every juncture point of the gyrotoroid should do it," she tapped.

"Will do," came the swift reply. She swallowed a mouthful of water from her bottle and stood up, heading for some lunch. She would handle the safeties after some food.

Panchy was out by the pool, enjoying the sun and her crossword puzzles over her own lunch. The kitchen was filled with pans and pans of lasagnas being assembled, but there was a counter clear for lunches. Lunch around here was usually a self-serve affair, unless there were visitors. There weren't any, and even Vegeta didn't seem to be coming back for lunch or maybe she'd already missed him, so Bulma dished herself leftovers from last night and shoveled it in as fast as she could before heading back to the lab.

She had the perfect idea for a safety, but programming the neural network was the easy part. The hard part would be data collection. It had occurred to her she needed a solution that wouldn't pussy out before Vegeta needed it to but would still shut down when he absolutely _did_. They _couldn't_ have a repeat of the original catastrophic failure. Her new containment design greatly reduced the risk of a catastrophic failure in the first place, but still…

She needed to find some way to directly measure Vegeta's level of consciousness and compare it to a set of known values.

She could do that by monitoring his _ki_.

For that, she needed a way to detect it and systematically parse it.

She had built detectors to find dragon balls, off of no real data other than obscure mystical stories on which to calibrate the signal, and they had _worked_ , and far better than anything cobbled together by any of their enemies. She could build a Vegeta-ki-detector, and a Vegeta-ki-monitoring system. She furiously scratched out a design on a set of fresh papers, making rapid calculations. Several hours later, she had worked out a detection system, and constructed a working model of something she could use to take a baseline, and desperately wanted to start gathering data. She sent the sim results and CAD files for the monitoring system to her father as before, and then grabbed her 3D-fabricated, wearable monitor bracelet.

Vegeta usually got home around this time. She needed to give this to him. She got up and headed to his rooms. The prototype detector on her desk indicated he was there. She pushed open the door and strode in, puzzling for a moment when he wasn't right in front of her.

* * *

In the bathroom, Vegeta turned off the tap, sensing the woman's ki nearby. Puzzled, he toweled off quickly and wrapped the white terrycloth around his waist, twisting the corners in a knot. He rubbed a second towel through his hair and stepped out of the bathroom. And stopped dead, staring.

She was in his room, standing there, still in that weird clothing, holding some small object.

"What are you doing here, woman?" he demanded. Her eyes popped at the sight of him, and then systematically inventoried him for any hurts. "I'm _fine_ , not even a scratch, ok?" he growled, dabbing at his hair with the towel before tossing it on the floor. "What do you want?"

"Vegeta, I need your ki," she barked, waving the object at him.

His face scrunched in confusion. "What?!"

"Your _ki!_ I need _your ki_! I need to see if my monitor works, and if it does, I need 24/7 samples of your range of ki output throughout multiple states of consciousness and brain activity."

"I don't…" he trailed off, hesitant and confused.

"Ugh, why do I have to be afflicted with sexy, half-naked men without any _clue_! I can get it done as soon as I've programmed the neural network. Do you _want_ this gravity room or _not_?"

"Want," he blurted. Then flinched, feeling strangely off balance. "Uh, yes. Yes, of course I want the gravity room fixed. What do you mean, you need my ki?" She seemed to have gone into some kind of… scientific… frenzy. He wrinkled a brow, mouth feeling dry for some weird reason. Something about her intensity made him feel funny.

"This is a Vegeta-ki-monitor," she said, thrusting out the object. He took it with one hand and then had to grab for the towel with the other before it slid off his waist, the knot having chosen that moment to fail. He examined this thing the woman had given him.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked, puzzled.

"I need samples of your ki. 24/7 samples. In the full range of your states of consciousness and brain activity. Awake, asleep, at rest, on the john, fighting…" she trailed off, staring at his face. He glowered at her. "Look, just _wear it_ , ok? Press _this_ button." Then it seemed she finally noticed that he was wearing nothing but a _towel_ as her eyes flicked over him and she turned slightly pink.

He stood there, object in one hand and towel held closed in the other, as she turned around and headed for the door. "And put some _clothes_ on that sinfully indecent bod of yours, Mister Badman, it's almost supper and it's lasagna night," she shot at him. And then she was out the door, and he felt like he could breathe again.

"I was going to do that before _you_ came," he muttered acidly at the door. He threw the towel off, put the woman's device on the bed, and got dressed as quickly as he could. Then he turned back to the object and puzzled out that it was supposed to go on his wrist. He put it there, pushed the button, and it made a small beep, clearly activating. He froze. It did nothing further, and he relaxed, and then headed down to the dining room.

He _liked_ lasagna night. Panchy rarely did it, because she claimed it took _days_ of prep. He didn't care. Lasagna was one of the few entries on the list of reasons why he might consider actually _sparing_ the Earth when he finished destroying the androids. That shit was _delicious_.

He made it to the room just in time. Panchy was placing several pans on the table. She greeted him with bright, friendly tones and a smiling face. "Vegeta, so nice of you to join us. I made lasagna!"

Vegeta hated many things in the universe, but he thought he might just love Panchy. "Thank you, Panchy," he said, mouth twisting into something like a grin. "I like lasagna. Thanks." He sat. Panchy put a hot pan before him and doled out to the family from another. He was sure there were more in the kitchen, inside the food heater thing, getting ready for him. He suppressed an anticipatory grin.

The blue-haired woman was watching him. "Don't destroy it until I say I have enough data," she demanded.

"No shop talk!" barked Panchy, picking up her utensils.

"Sorry, Mom," the woman said, turning to her lasagna. Vegeta dove in. This truly was a spectacular dish, with alternating layers of savoury meat sauce and some kind of noodle, with a surprise layer of some kind of limp leaf and some creamy stuff, and finished with goopy cheese, and paired with a dark wine of some obviously decent vintage. Panchy insisted that she had made all parts of the dish herself, including the noodles. He didn't know why this mattered, but the end result was amazing. Lasagna night had only come around maybe three times since he'd started staying with the Briefs and Vegeta sometimes _dreamed_ of it at night.

He caught the blue-haired harpy's eyes on him while he shovelled down the food and returned her gaze with a challenging glare of his own. ' _What?!'_ demanded his silent glare. She took a nonchalant breath, rolled her eyes saucily, and then raised an eyebrow, and he huffed and focused on his meal.

No dessert tonight, but Vegeta didn't need it. Panchy kept the lasagna coming as long as he kept eating. She had made enough that by the time he finished, he actually felt _full_. Or pretty damn close to it.

The woman excused herself from the table and rose, swaying slightly. He could smell the alcohol metabolizing as she passed by his spot.

Vegeta finished the last scraps of deliciousness and drained his glass. "Thank you for the excellent meal, Panchy," he said, with feeling, and his hostess smiled.

"It was my pleasure, Vegeta! I've been working on the ingredients for _days_ ," Panchy replied. "I know how much you like lasagna. It's my special recipe, it never fails."

"It's great, and I will definitely spare your life when I destroy this planet," he grinned. The woman's mother was most certainly on the list of things worth keeping around from this awful planet. Panchy just smiled back, apparently unaware of the seriousness of his comment. He excused himself and rose from the table.

The Briefs usually ate later into the evening, but without the hour or so of lingering after the meal was finished, he usually had a little time to kill before he slept. He didn't feel like flying off somewhere else, and the gravity room was still out of commission until the woman and her father rebuilt it.

So, he considered going back to his quarters and starting up the computer the woman had provided him with and spending time with the literacy software she had installed when she realized he couldn't read their script. It was designed for children and painfully condescending, and he hadn't spent much time on it, but he didn't see how else he was going to learn. Being _taught_ by _that woman_ would be downright embarrassing. She would no doubt mock him pitilessly – she had yet to show him even an ounce of respect or the deference he was due.

He arrived at his quarters, stripping down to his boxers, threw the rest of the clothes on the floor, and sat at the computer, powering it on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, you guys. I'm glad you're liking it. I just can't hold back anymore, I think I'm going to post more frequently. Maybe once every three days.

Bulma was not done for the night. She didn't want to work, but it was too early to sleep. The wine had her a little tipsy, but not full on drunk. She wanted to watch a movie. But there was no Yamcha, and watching a movie alone just wasn't fun. The surge of loneliness nearly staggered her, and she sat on her bed.

She had no one to watch with, and no one to share popcorn with. _Zombie Annihilation 4_ had just been released on her streaming service, and there was no one to share it with. Her parents weren't interested in her kind of movies. Yamcha was a thing of the past. And Vegeta would never… wait a moment…

Her brows furrowed. She'd never even _thought_ of asking _Vegeta_ , Prince of All Assholes, to watch a movie. He was always too busy training that hard body of his. But the gravity room was down for at least another day… and honestly, he hadn't seemed that _bad_ lately. Her parents seemed to have tamed him somewhat, just like they tamed every other animal they came into contact with. Alright, maybe it was the wine speaking… but it couldn't hurt to _ask_.

She got up and grabbed her Vegeta-ki-detector. Yup, he was in his quarters, not out training somewhere. She mentally mapped out the dot with the layout of his room in her mind. That's not the bathroom, or his bed, she decided. It seemed to be the computer. Hmm. She didn't think he actually _used_ that thing. She'd more or less provided it just in case he had free time and wanted to learn how to read.

She padded down the hall and reached his door. Through the walls she heard a quiet, distorted "'a' is for 'apple'. Can you find the 'a'?" followed a moment later by tinny fanfare sounds and a cheerful "good job! You found the 'a'!" She pushed open the door. Vegeta looked up over the top of the computer monitor, clearly not expecting her entry.

"What do you want, woman?" he growled. "I'm busy."

"I see that," she said, slightly amused. "I wanted to know if you wanted to watch a movie with me."

His brow furrowed quizzically. Did Vegeta even know what a movie was? "Watch a movie?" he echoed, sounding puzzled.

"Yeah, you know, moving pictures, soundtrack, wild adventures to enjoy vicariously with popcorn and a friend?" she snarked, twirling her hands to punctuate. He blinked at her use of the word 'friend'.

"Woman, I'm not your _friend_ ," he grouched.

"Oh, don't worry, _I know_. It seems I don't _have_ any of those around right now. Do you want to watch a movie with me, or _not_? The gravity room will be at least another day, so you can stay up late tonight, and movie with a hot guy there is way better than movie alone." She stifled the flash of loneliness at his reminder and buried it in her customary sarcasm and barbed tone.

His eyes dropped back to the screen, and she heard his mouse click. "'B' is for 'banana'. Can you find the 'b'?" the computer chirped in childish tones. There was another click of the mouse, and more tinny fanfare. "Good job! You found the 'b'!"

A moment passed. Bulma was struck with a thought. Food rewards were highly motivating for Vegeta. "I'll make you lasagna," she wheedled. Black eyes glued to her again, face expressionless.

"Your mother's recipe?" he asked. Bulma nodded. It would take three days of labour, but she didn't care right now. The gravity room was on its way to construction and she needed to collect baseline ki data over more than just one day, and the armour could wait. She could take the time to make lasagna in return for not feeling so lonely watching a movie.

"I'll do it," he said, finally.

She grinned ruthlessly. "I'll make popcorn. Meet me in the home theatre in 20. We're watching _Zombie Annihilation 4_."

20 minutes later, she hauled an enormous vessel of buttered, salted popcorn into the home theatre. Vegeta was leaning on a wall in the room, arms crossed. He took a tentative, curious sniff at her burden. "What's that stuff?" he asked.

"The popcorn. It's tradition. You can't have movies without popcorn. You can't eat popcorn alone." She pointed to a set of two theatre chairs. "Sit, I'll put it between us, and you can eat it, but I want some too, ok? Don't eat it _all_ , bottomless pit."

"Whatever, woman," he muttered, taking a seat. She put giant tub of popcorn down in the space between the chairs and went to start the projector. She heard a rustle of popcorn, followed by crunching. Followed by more rustling and more crunching.

"Save some for the movie," she insisted.

"Okay, okay. Let's get this over with," he huffed, but he stopped eating long enough for her to get things started. She killed the lights and went to her seat, reaching in for a handful herself, as the opening scenes began on the large screen of her family's private home theatre.

Vegeta watched the movie in silence, munching popcorn. Occasionally, she could feel the heat of his eyes on her, but her surreptitious side-eye through lowered lashes only showed him seemingly taking in the spectacle on the screen with no expression.

"They made _four_ of these?" he commented acerbically, partway through the film, after a particularly egregious scene of zombie slaughtering followed by the female and male lead groping each other in an over-the-top fashion.

"There's a fifth in production, and don't take it so seriously. It's supposed to be stupid," she responded.

He grunted and ate another handful of popcorn. She'd gotten her bites in and he was ploughing his way through the rest with methodic intensity.

By the time the movie finished, the last of the wine had left her entirely, and she was tired. Vegeta had annihilated the rest of the popcorn. Aside from the one comment, he hadn't seemed to react the whole time. She got up, flicked on the light, and washed her buttery hands off in the little sink at the bar in the back of the home theatre.

"That's all?" he queried, looking mildly surprised.

"Yes, Vegeta, that's all. Thanks for joining me. I'll start on your lasagna binge tomorrow," she replied, brusquely. His eyes were on her, again, black and unreadable. She felt slightly self-conscious, but methodically went to pick up and discard stray popcorn that had fallen to the floor. She carried the huge bowl out for cleaning. Halfway through the door, she thought she heard a soft "you're welcome."

* * *

The woman was _doing_ something to him. He wasn't quite sure how, or why, but it was clear she was doing _something_. He didn't have anything else to explain what was going on, why he had reached out to grab her arm that night or agreed to watch that stupid _movie_ or whatever it was, last night. Though, he'd liked the popcorn.

She didn't _seem_ like a witch, in fact she definitely seemed to prefer technology and he had never _once_ sensed any kind of intentional manifestation or direction of her pitiful ki. So, it probably wasn't witchcraft. But ever since that night, when he'd found her crying in the hallway, she'd been doing something to him. Putting him off balance. Making him feel weird. Making him feel _concern_ for her. Making him agree to do things he would normally refuse.

He puzzled at it with a part of his mind while annihilating rocks and trees and other natural features, somehow mindful of the fragile piece of equipment on his wrist. The gravity room was still under construction but should be finished tomorrow, so all he had was regular weak earth gravity and whatever wasteland he could find and lay further waste to.

He tried to dredge through memories of her behaviour since he'd met her, seeing if he could identify whatever it was. In retrospect, he thought he could see when the weakling stopped courting her; her comments and attitude had not changed, but she'd been a little more morose when not snarking and her flirtations had seemed more reflex than usual, and she had thrown herself into her work with single-minded intensity. It didn't seem to be _that_.

It wasn't anything _else_ he'd observed, either. Try as he might, Vegeta simply couldn't identify at what point the woman had changed and started doing this to him. It was confusing. He shouldn't even care. She was just a weak human, and he was the Prince of All Saiyans. A smart, capable human, with a mouth that could sour milk, and a body even he had noticed, which she typically displayed skillfully and with confidence. Her weapons were sarcasm, a devastatingly quick wit, insincere flirtation, and embarrassing commentary delivered in such a casual tone that it always made him self-conscious, and she was damnably good at wielding them. But she was still just a human. Right?

Unbidden, the sight of her the night before, standing in his room, requesting his presence for a movie filled his mind. "I'm not your _friend_ ," he had said, at the time. There had been a flash of some inner pain across her face before she had hit back with her own sharp words.

He'd said, then, and he wasn't. So why did he now feel uneasy, remembering that he'd said it? Remembering the very brief reaction across her face at the reminder of something that was patently obvious? He was _not_ her friend. He'd caused the deaths of plenty of her friends, and gravely wounded the rest. His own resurrection by those selfsame friends was more accidental than anything else, even if they'd been quick to offer tentative suggestions of potential belonging, which he'd rebuffed to focus on getting stronger. And he still planned on busting this place up in revenge for his many humiliations, when he achieved ascendancy and destroyed those androids and finally showed Kakarot who was stronger.

It was too confusing. Why should he care? Just what the fuck was _that woman_ doing to him?

He renewed his assault on the landscape, and then switched to trying to give himself a challenge by beating his own self up again, like he had the day he destroyed the armour at her request, and tried to push the unease and confusion from his mind in his focus on training.

Much later, he returned to the compound, showered, and pulled on a shirt he hoped was dark enough to hide the bloodstains, and headed down for supper. Panchy was putting out tray after tray of sandwiches. "I hope you don't mind a cold supper, Vegeta, dear. Bulma's been using the kitchen. We just had lasagna, but she said she was going to cook some for you," the Briefs matron informed him.

So, she was keeping her part of the movie night bargain. He hadn't been sure if she was actually serious about that offer. That had been two hours he could never get back, but at least the popcorn had been good. Might have been worth it for lasagna.

"I'm fine with anything, Panchy, thank you," he muttered. _The woman_ emerged from the kitchen, wearing a pale blue apron, and sat down. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead, and stray hairs were escaping the hair lump at the back of her head. There was a smudge of sauce above her eyebrow. He could smell her from across the table, a heady mix of spices, sauce, sweat, and _her_ , and it was all too appealing. He attempted to stop breathing for a moment to get control over himself.

_Seriously_ , what was she _doing_ to him? Her ki was the flat blip it always was. Nope, not witchcraft. What then?

Her exotic blue eyes were on him, examining him for injury. She huffed, eyes snapping, having obviously spotted the bloodspot he had hoped to disguise with the dark fabric. She met his eyes with a challenging promise of medical ministrations to come. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest (conveniently covering the bloodstain), and curled his lip contemptuously in return. He could see the muscles in her jaw tense as she grit her teeth. His grin deepened.

The sandwiches were good – cool meat paired with complementary cheese selections, crisp leaves, and savoury condiments, on very fresh bread. Vegeta ate with gusto. He preferred hot food when he could get it, but there was clearly nothing wrong with these things. If this was the sacrifice he must make for lasagna in a couple of days, he was fine with it.

The woman and her mother chattered about recipes and cooking techniques while they ate. It sounded like shop talk to Vegeta, but he didn't comment. It appeared Panchy was ok with shop talk as long as the shop involved was the kitchen. She truly seemed to enjoy cooking, which was great, because she was so good at it, and he really enjoyed eating. Her foul-mouthed daughter seemed to be knowledgeable, as well. Vegeta had high hopes for what was to come. Lasagna, twice in the same month!

After supper, he thanked Panchy and excused himself, and the woman advanced on his position, intention in her eyes. "Come on _you_ , you can't hide that cut from _me_ , mister sexypants. Let's go get you cleaned up," she growled.

"Apron, honey. No blood on my kitchen stuff," Panchy tossed out at her daughter. The girl slipped off the blue thing and dropped it on the kitchen chair, stalking after Vegeta resolutely.

"Let's get this over with," he huffed, waiting for her to catch up before stomping off to his quarters.

Minutes later, with his shirts peeled off and in his boxers on the toilet seat, she aggressively swabbed him, muttering her usual abuse under her breath about stupid sexy Saiyans with no sense, while he attempted to stare fixedly at a point somewhere on the wall behind her, attempting and failing to ignore her scent. She'd clearly worked _hard_ in the kitchen today.

"I have plenty of sense," he sneered in response to her comments.

She grabbed a pair of tweezers and jerked something from his skin with what appeared to be effort on her part, and then waved it in front of his face, grimacing triumphantly. "This is a _rock_ , Vegeta. It was embedded in your perfect _pecks_ ," she spat.

"So?!" he demanded, gaze dropping to her eyes. It was a mistake. She was somehow _doing it to him_ , again. Something inside him flipflopped unsettlingly. It wasn't food poisoning – Saiyans almost never encountered anything their stomachs couldn't handle and Panchy was too good a cook. He wasn't sure what it was.

" _So?!_ " she echoed him, mockingly. He ground his teeth. "It's a _rock_. In your _chest_. Where it _shouldn't be_."

"It would have fallen out eventually," he protested. Her eyes flared and her lips pressed together, and she took in an incensed breath. "Get on with it," he insisted, feeling lightheaded as some kind of fire began to burn in his insides. He went back to staring at the wall.

She worked silently for a few minutes, while he tried to get himself under control. After a few minutes she spoke again. "The gravity room should be ready for tomorrow morning. I haven't finished the safety mechanism yet, but it'll be open for you to train. I worked out a new containment system and it has enabled Dad to crank the field _much, much_ higher than before." He stayed silent, listening. She stuck the last few gauze patches to him and brushed her hands together. "But you are _not_ to try to advance the gravities nonlinearly, ok?" She punctuated the 'not' with a stab of her finger to his chest. He suppressed the stupid urge to grab her hand. "Wait until I have the safeties installed before you do anything _stupid_."

"I don't _need_ a safety system," he snarled. How dare she imply that he was _weak_?!

She huffed. "I don't care what _you_ think you _need_ ; _I_ don't want to have to rebuild the damn thing when you blow it up again because you bit off more than you could chew! There's _gonna_ be a safety system, whether you want it or not. Just don't destroy the gravity chamber again before I can get it installed and calibrated!"

"Are we done, here?" he demanded, accidentally making eye contact.

"We're done. Keep the Vegeta-ki-monitor on your wrist, I will need to dump the data in several days. I want you to wear it when you're sleeping, when you're eating, when you're going all out, when you're at rest. I want you wearing it even when you're touching yourself," she hissed, looking him straight in the eyes. He couldn't stop the flinch when she mentioned touching himself. "And _don't_ destroy it, I need those metrics."

"Whatever, woman," he muttered, looking away. Eye contact was a _mistake_. "I'll wear it." She cleared up the packaging and medical supplies, while he tried to focus on breathing through his mouth instead of his nose. That didn't help, either. He could taste her scent in the air, mixed with antiseptic and ointment.

She left, and he shifted in his seat, uncomfortably aware that he had somehow sprung an erection. She'd gone back to her quarters, but her scent still lingered all around. He let out a groan. _What the hell was she doing to him?!_ He was Vegeta, the Prince of All Saiyans!

Stiff legged and careful, he walked back to his bed. It was a bit too early for sleep, but he didn't want to train this late, and he didn't want to leave the room like this, and he _sure_ didn't want to sit in front of that stupid computer hearing childish voices praise him for matching a letter to a fruit.

Then, he remembered her comment about touching himself and hissed, feeling more frustrated than he ever had in his entire _life_.


	6. Chapter 6

Bulma headed straight for the shower, tossing her lasagna-sauce-smelling clothes into the hamper and not caring if they missed. Something about Vegeta had changed. She wasn't sure where, or when, or how, or why, but there was something about him that just seemed… different. Off. It was his usual intensity but directed at something other than just training to get Super Saiyan to defeat Goku and smash androids.

She thought it might have started the night her old high school friend Helen had bombarded her with texts demanding to know what happened between her and Yamcha and had sent those pictures of Yamcha putting the moves on some chick. The shock of it, the proof that it was over and there was no going back, that Yamcha had moved on… it had upset her. Vegeta caught her when she was vulnerable, and even though she sublimated the grief beneath the need to tend his wounds, it seems something happened inside the crazy Saiyan.

He'd been sneaking glances at her ever since, when he thought she wasn't looking. She could _feel_ his gaze on her, like a lick of hot air from her forge in the hot-work shop when she got too close. And now, when she met his black eyes, there was something in them, something she couldn't figure out. Like he was actually _seeing_ her. It wasn't like before, when he'd been either cold or contemptuous or annoyed or taken aback by something she'd said. Those eyes were way, way different from _these_ eyes. _These_ eyes looked at her like she was a _person_ instead of a tool. It made her feel self-conscious.

She remembered her mother's comments the other night in the kitchen, and then the arch and knowing look Panchy had given her today, when she revealed that she was cooking lasagnas. For Vegeta. It was _just_ a bargain, in return for a movie night. No big deal. Right? Panchy had hummed out an insincere agreement, smiling broadly. "Sure, Bulma, honey. Whatever you say."

Ok, so he was hot. She'd recognized that the moment she saw him for the very first time. She was young, healthy, and straight. Vegeta was a handsome man. But she was used to handsome men, bulging with muscles and at the peak of physical fitness; she'd been surrounded by those types since she was a teen. That shouldn't mean anything to her. It usually didn't, other than to give her plenty of fuel for lascivious comments that didn't reflect any real desire on her part but seemed to put all her male friends off balance, which was part of the fun.

He wasn't even a _friend_ , he'd said so himself.

Her heart ached, suddenly, and she felt more alone and more confused than she ever had in her entire _life_. She turned the heat up in the shower and cried silently, letting the water run over her.

What the _hell_ was happening? To her? To Vegeta?

After some time under the stream of hot water, she sighed, decided to finish washing her hair, and got into a terrycloth bathrobe, tying the sash tight. Expertly, she constructed a towel turban. She grabbed a paperback romance from her overfull bookcase and sat on her bed. Today she'd made sauce, which only improved for sitting a day or two. Tomorrow, she'd make noodles. The day after, she'd make the bechamel, cook the noodles, and assemble the lasagnas, and they could eat that night. Panchy had advised her on the techniques, and she had helped her mother in the kitchen before on this, but this was the first time where she'd done all the work herself. And it was truly a lot of work. Man, she had felt so hot and sweaty in that kitchen.

She made it three chapters in before deciding that she really, _really_ needed chocolate. Still clad in her robe and towel turban, she headed for the kitchen.

* * *

Vegeta stirred uncomfortably in his bed, unable to sleep. He was still hard. Every time he closed his eyes, he had intrusive visions of the woman. Soft and slender, in her tight clothing, mouth speaking something snarky and foul, blue hair in any of her weird styles. And her eyes. Those strange, blue eyes of hers, so exotic and so fierce. They gleamed with razor-sharp intelligence and sparked with her cunning wit. Those eyes missed nothing. She was weak as a kitten compared to him, but those eyes, they were powerful. _She_ was powerful, somehow, despite her lack of physical strength or ki. Despite knowing full well that it wasn't witchcraft, he still wondered if she'd somehow bewitched him.

His cock twitched and he gasped out a curse. She'd casually suggested that he touched himself, as if it was a normal, everyday thing to do. _As if_ he shouldn't be _completely_ focused on training, and training alone. Maybe weakling _human_ men needed to touch themselves regularly. He was a Saiyan, and a prince, and a warrior who had ended dozens of civilizations. He shouldn't need to stoop so low, to embarrass himself like that, catering to mere physical urges.

Damn that woman. He'd never wanted _any_ pleasure woman the way he wanted _her_ right now, and she wasn't even remotely close to a pleasure woman. This shouldn't be happening to him.

Finally, he got up, striding to the shower, and put the water on as cold as it would go. He stood under the stream and willed his erection to fade.

15 minutes later, he'd gotten himself to some semblance of calmed down, and stepped out of the shower. His stomach rumbled aggressively, and he paused. It wasn't too late to eat again. He toweled his hair as dry as he could and threw on a terry robe, cinching the sash. Then he stalked down towards the kitchen to see if there were any leftovers he could scavenge.

When he trudged into the dining room, he froze. _The woman_ was there, wrapped in a smaller version of the robe he wore, with some kind of towel construction on top of her head. She had a mug of tea on the table in front of her, and a book in one hand and was breaking off small pieces of something that smelled strongly of whatever was in the cake Panchy had made several days ago. That stuff with the euphoric alkaloids. He couldn't remember the name offhand.

He looked at the book, brow wrinkling. On the cover was a picture of a bare-chested human male with a gown-clad human female in his arms, hand on the man's chest, gazing at the illustrated man with big, watery eyes like some little herbivorous creature before something made dinner out of it. The script of the title was so distorted he couldn't even make out the letters. What the fuck.

"'Lo Vegeta," she murmured, not looking from her book.

"Any food in there?" he ground out, remembering his mission. He scowled at the book, as though it was offending him personally.

"Plenty, go help yourself."

Well, she was clearly _not_ going to prepare it for him, at least not this time. He entered the kitchen, taking a subtle sniff of her as he passed. Thank gods, her scent was reduced considerably, all the sweat washed off and her natural aroma suppressed. He didn't think he could handle it if she'd been smelling like she was earlier.

Sure enough, there were plenty of packaged leftovers in the refrigerators, of multiple types. They were all clearly labelled, but he couldn't read. He tried to identify the first letter of each thing and could only place a few of the letter sounds. Frustrated, he turned back to the dining room.

"Find something?" she asked, taking a sip of tea.

"I can't read the labels," he muttered.

She put the book down on the table, spread out so that the page wouldn't get lost. Judging by the curve of the spine, this wasn't the first time this book had been treated this way. She stood up. "Here, I'll help."

A protest rose on his tongue, but he didn't speak it. Instead, he let her into the kitchen and stood back while she perused the collection of food. He tried not to notice the shape of her body through the terry robe when she bent over. It suddenly occurred to him that she was probably naked under it, just like he was, and he had to take a deep breath and force himself to think of something else.

"You could probably just eat it _all_ ," she suggested.

He grunted, not trusting his capacity for speech at that moment.

"The one that looks like this is chicken parm. See here, there's a 'c'…"

"But that makes a 'k' sound," he said, "not a 'ch' sound"

"It makes a 'ch' sound when there's an 'h' after it, see? Ch-ch-ch-chicken."

He moved forward and grabbed three bundles of chicken parm, and tried to ignore the singsong 'good job, you found the 'c'!' that darted across his mind when he stepped back to his previous position. "What else?"

"Well this one is pad Thai. I think you liked that one. Look at the 'p', for 'pad'."

He grabbed three of those and waited expectantly.

"This is Swedish meatballs. Look, the 's' is big, because it's named after a place. With the 'w' it goes 'sw'."

He piled on three more packages. "Where's the lasagna?"

She shook silently, and he realized she was laughing. "All gone. You finished it off last night. You'll have to wait for me to finish cooking the next batch!"

Damn. "What else is here?"

"This one's char siu. The spelling is 'ch' but it sounds different. Char siu."

Confusing, but delicious. Three of those.

"I'll start with these," he said, trying not to drop twelve packages of food.

"You know how to use the industrial microwave?" she asked, raising an amused eyebrow at him. She had this funny little smirk. He wasn't sure how to react. Those laughing eyes and that little smirk… it made that hot feeling inside start again.

"Uhh…" he extemporized, stomach growling audibly. He was privately grateful for the distraction. Panchy always heated his lunch for him, and if she was not available for some reason, he ate whatever he could grab cold, but it was better when he had choice and when it was hot.

"Here, I'll help. Don't put any metal in there. Like the gold-chased china, or a fork."

"Well, obviously. It's a _microwave_. We used that tech to make _weapons_." He knew what microwave radiation did to metal, he'd used it a few times in the past. Earthlings used it to _heat their food_. Ridiculous planet.

She plated the food, putting as much in the microwave as she could, and started the machine, explaining each step as she did. It was pretty straightforward matter of numbers and time, and he'd already managed to figure out numbers on this strange planet. Numbers were easy – especially as these people used a base 10 math system that could be combined in predictable and modular ways. It was script that sucked, because that shit could be anything. A few minutes later, she piled it on a tray, handing it to him. "Go sit. I'll heat up the rest."

"Thanks," he replied, automatically, and then realized he had just thanked _the woman_. She smiled, though, and Vegeta suddenly felt like he'd just descended down a high-speed lift. He tried not to flee the kitchen with his tray of food.

It wasn't _as_ good as when Panchy had brought it out fresh, but it was still orders of magnitude better than ship slop. With no Panchy here, he didn't have to pace himself to be polite or wait for her to sit down before eating. He shoveled it in, enjoying every bite. Before he finished, she came out with a second tray and put it before him. He thanked her without thinking about it, never breaking stride. She smiled, and he got that weightless feeling again. Then a third tray, and a third automatic thanks. Same result. Then she sat down across from him, picked up her book, sipped her tea, and took a piece of the dark brown stuff.

He focused on eating, trying not to think about this interaction, or the one that had occurred before in his bathroom. Or the result. Definitely, not the result of _that_ interaction. He didn't want to take _another_ cold shower.

"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked, eyeing him over the top of her book.

"Hungry," he lied. Well, it was a partial lie. He ate. She watched him from behind her book. He tried to ignore her.

"Where does it all _go_?" she mused.

He blinked, finishing a mouthful. "My ki. I _think_."

"Well, it certainly doesn't go to your _ass_ ," she commented. He suddenly realized it was the first lewd comment out of her mouth since he'd come down to the kitchen. And it sure wasn't one of her worst. He attempted a glare over the pile of food and empty dishes, but it just didn't have its usually cutting strength.

When he finished, he stared at the dirty plates, feeling somewhat at a loss. "I'll help you get the dishes done," she said, and he twitched. He'd forgotten about that. Usually Panchy spirited them away. Vegeta supposed he'd _have_ to help, now.

They put the plates on the trays and brought them into the kitchen. The woman showed him how to load them into the dish cleaning mechanism, cautioning him not to place things randomly. There was an order to it, one that must be adhered to, or the wrath of Panchy would descend upon them. He didn't want that. He listened attentively and followed instructions.

"Aren't there bots?" he asked. Bots did everything else in this household. Bots did the floors, kept the dust away, did the laundry, made the beds, polished furniture and ornaments, and cleaned the bathrooms. Bots fetched objects and cleaned up after animals. Bots helped him train… when the gravity room was functioning. Bots did just about everything and anything, save for the things they got the servants, the ones they called 'employees', to do. Which mostly consisted of procuring and delivering food and other supplies to the household, from what Vegeta could tell, and doing who knows what elsewhere on the campus in the places he never went. He never strayed into the other parts of the campus to see what they did.

"Mom likes to do this herself. She lets bots clean the pots and pans," the woman explained.

Weird. But he wasn't going to argue over Panchy's methods in Panchy's _own_ _kitchen_ , not even to Panchy's daughter. The matron's system clearly worked well for her.

"Any more of that cake left?" he asked, once the pile of dishes had been dealt with.

"I think the last of it disappeared earlier today, sorry," she said. He thought she might be blushing. He grunted. He was satisfied, anyway. Cake would have simply been nice. They left the kitchen together, and he assiduously attempted to avoid any kind of incidental contact as they did so. He wasn't sure he could deal with it if they touched, even accidentally.

Her cup of tea was still at the table, along with her book and a few chunks of the dark stuff. He took a tentative sniff. The dark stuff still smelled interesting. "What is that stuff called again? It smells like the cake did," he muttered.

"Chocolate. This is the dark kind. There's also milk and white, but I felt like dark. Want some?" she offered.

Want some? _…Yes_. Vegeta hesitated. She picked up the plate and held it out to him. He took a small piece. They were shaped like little square pillows. "Thanks," he said, automatically, though he became conscious of the fact that he'd said it after she smiled again.

Crazy lift-dropping feeling again.

He put the chocolate in his mouth. The flavour was intense, very rich, not too sweet, and heady with that alkaloid he had detected in the cake. This was _much_ better, though he'd eat cake, too, if there was any. She ate the last piece, and quickly put her dishes away while he savoured the square. "It's good," he said, after the last of it melted away into nothing but good memories. Then he smirked at her, mischievously. "It's still nothing like sex," he said, realizing that he probably shouldn't have said that the moment he said it.

He eyed her warily. There were tendrils of blue hair attempting to escape the towel assemblage, framing her face, he noticed, suddenly, distracted. She grinned back at him, and he could see that imp of the perverse in the curl of her lips and the glint in her eyes. He knew he was in for it. "How would _you_ know?" she demanded, amusement in her voice.

He snorted, contemptuously. "Woman, I'm a _prince_ ," he smirked. "And over 30."

"Yeah, like _that_ means anything, _your_ _heinie_ , and obviously you've never watched _The 40-Year Old Virgin_ ," she snorted. He made a puzzled face. That sounded like 'your highness', but clearly wasn't. And what the fuck is 'the 40-year old virgin?' "Never mind…" she sighed. "I should go to bed. I got a full day of cooking for _you_ ahead of me, tomorrow."

"You said the gravity room would be back open?" he asked, hopeful.

"Yeah, Dad said it would be ready to go by dawn," she confirmed, and then yawned. He made a pleased grunt at the news. She started walking to the hallway that led to their respective quarters, and he trailed after her. They walked in silence down the hall, and he tried to puzzle through having spent what must have been half an hour with the woman with the least amount of dirty comments ever.

And the weirdest feelings inside, ever.

His door was first. She waited while he opened it. "Goodnight, Vegeta," she said, quietly, looking over her shoulder at him. Then she kept going to her rooms.

"Goodnight," he murmured, quietly, before returning to his room, hanging his robe, and falling into bed. Sleep was almost instant, this time, but the dreams, the dreams involved blue hair and eyes, pale, soft skin and intoxicating scents, bodies slick with sweat, and his surging, raging desire.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am updating this more frequently, once every 3-4 days. So please check that you've read the previous chapter before this. The midnight snacks scene. If you just thought 'what midnight snacks scene?', go read it :D

Bulma woke with a start, gasping and sweaty, and it took a moment before she realized that it had been a dream, there was no Vegeta offering to _demonstrate_ for her that sex was _nothing_ like chocolate, with a sexy smirk and an impressive tent in his shorts. Where the heck had _that_ come from? Weird. Ok, Vegeta had been way less of an asshole than usual, going after late-night snacks. _Way_ less of an asshole. Almost… nice. But still… why was he showing up in her dreams, propositioning her? Vegeta didn't give many shits about anything other than fighting, training and food.

 _So_ weird…

She showered, brushed her teeth, wrestled her still-wet hair into a tight tail, and slipped on some comfortable cutoff jean short shorts and an old shirt that she didn't care much about, because it would get covered in food debris while cooking. She decided to skip everything but mascara, considering she was about to slave away in a hot kitchen all day. A light spritz of her favourite floral perfume later, and she counted herself ready to go. She grabbed her book and headed for breakfast.

Her mother had French toast on the go, when she got down to the dining room. Her father was already at his newspaper, cigarette smouldering, Scratch occupying his usual shoulder perch. She ate French toast and read her book.

Vegeta wandered in a few minutes later, looking just a little rougher than usual. Maybe they'd been up too late, or maybe the food hadn't sat well. He slid into his seat.

"Good morning, Vegeta, dear," her mother chirped, swirling out of the kitchen with a huge stack of French toast and a mug of coffee. "I made French toast."

"Thank you, Panchy," Vegeta replied. He looked like he _needed_ that coffee, damn. Bulma was a little surprised by the fact that he went straight for it, instead of the food. He took a long draught of coffee and _then_ went for the food.

God damn it, she could feel his _eyes_ on her again. She looked up, catching him in the act. He met her gaze, completely unreadable, still.

"What is the book?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Just a bodice-ripper."

His scrunched-up brows of confusion were always kind of cute, she thought. Why had she just noticed this?

"What's that?"

"Tawdry romance. You know, hot, rich dude and gorgeous, period-inappropriate independent woman mince around each other for a good third of a book, pretending they don't actually want to bang and that they absolutely hate one another, finally fall into bed in a terribly-described sex scene full of horrific euphemisms, face plot contrivances designed to pull them apart by making them appear unfaithful, and after exactly three over-the-top bang sessions, finally realize their biggest problem was their own stupid selves all along, and live happily ever after," she drawled.

His face froze into an incredulous mask partway through her description. He looked sorry he asked. Bulma dropped her lashes and took a sip of coffee. He still looked like he didn't know how to react.

"Sometimes it's a series, and the author ships all the side characters from the first book in their own separate books. Sometimes the author even starts shipping the children," she continued.

His brow scrunched again. "Ship?"

"Relationship. You know, when two characters… uhh… nevermind," she said, seeing the blank look cross his face. She rolled her eyes.

"Sounds…" he started, looking like he suddenly decided that maybe he shouldn't comment.

"Stupid?" she supplied. He made an awkward face, like he had just thought exactly that but didn't want to say it for some reason. She took another sip and smiled at her coffee. "Yeah, it's totally stupid. Formulaic as shit. Slightly more intellectually stimulating than a bag of chips. About the literary equivalent of a bag of chips. Every woman's secret, guilty little pleasure. Anti-literature. Unlike a bag of chips, it won't make you fat, just a little bit ashamed of yourself for finishing the whole thing."

"I love a good romance," her mother beamed.

"Romance writers make a _lot_ of money," Bulma stated. Vegeta made one more absolutely incredulous face and went back to stuffing food into his maw.

She finished her breakfast while Panchy was fetching more French toast for the bottomless pit. She got up, stretching, hearing joints pop. Vegeta's eyes were on her again. Just great. Oh well, back to business. "The gravity room's ready, so go knock yourself out. Not literally, please. And don't destroy the ki monitor, or I'll make the next one rectal," she threatened, heading for the kitchen. She had a _lot_ of pasta to make.

Panchy was just inside, with another pile of French toast. Her mother floated gracefully out into the dining room with a smile for Bulma. Bulma paused when she heard Vegeta's voice, more uncertain than usual.

"Thank you, Panchy… uh… what is a 'heinie'?"

"It's a butt, dear. You have a very _cute_ heinie!" she heard her mother reply.

Bulma _really, really_ wished she could have seen his face.

* * *

With the gravity room restored to operation, Vegeta seemed to go back to being normal for a day. It was a bit of a relief to Bulma. Now he could _really_ burn off some of that excess energy and angst. Her pasta prep day passed without any weirdness, and the next morning and afternoon, and then it was lasagna night. _Her_ lasagna night.

She had made twelve. She hoped it would be enough. If she somehow failed to _deliver_ on her lasagna promise, Vegeta would no doubt find _some way_ to make sure she never lived it down.

Her parents were waiting patiently at the table. Today, it was Bulma who got to play lady of the house. Panchy attempted to make small talk with Vegeta, who arrived freshly showered and looking like he'd properly exhausted himself training. No cuts or scratches, that she could see. Good. She poured the first glass of wine for everyone and came out with two steaming pans of lasagna on a sturdy tray. She served her mother and father, then used oven mitts to place the entire pan in front of Vegeta, while he watched her out of the side of his eyes, expression hungry. She half expected him to start drooling.

"Thanks," he said.

"As promised," she replied, smiling. His eyes seemed to blank out for a moment when she smiled. Huh. Weird.

"Thank you, Bulma," said her father.

"I'm so proud of you," said her mother. Bulma made a wry grin and took her seat, dishing herself.

"Here's hoping it'll be good enough," she said.

"It should be, you used _my_ recipe," her mom smiled.

Bulma took the first bite and was unsurprised to see Vegeta go for his immediately after she lifted her fork. Actually, it wasn't bad at all. It was a perfectly acceptable lasagna. Her mom's recipe truly was the _best_ , and there was no improving on perfection.

Five pans later, he was slowing down. Each time, he thanked her, more or less by reflex. Bulma remembered her parents attempts at operant conditioning and gave him a bright smile back. Lasagna wasn't something one could dish extra when the serving was the whole pan. But her smile seemed to bring that same weird blanking out in his eyes.

Bulma and her parents had long since finished, her mother working on a puzzle and her father flipping through a magazine over a cigarette. Finally, Vegeta seemed to come to a stop.

"Well?" asked Bulma. He glanced at her, looking almost wary. "How was it?"

"Really good, thank you. I like lasagna," he managed, after a moment. She smiled, feeling chuffed, and his face did that thing again.

"Whose do you like _better_ , Vegeta, dear?" her mother asked, grinning in such a way that Bulma knew her mother was well aware of what she was doing. Panchy acted pretty vapid most of the time, but Bulma knew her mother was a lot cleverer than she let on. Panchy clearly still had _not_ given up on the idea of her daughter and _Vegeta_. Bulma wanted to snort. Like that would ever happen.

The Saiyan froze, clearly aware that this was some kind of trap. Bulma almost felt sorry for him.

"I think," he said, cautiously, "they're _both_ good, very good. I might have to sample several more batches to be sure."

Oh, _clever_. Bulma stifled a grin. It was the best dodging of a Morton's Fork that she'd ever witnessed. 'Might have to sample several more batches to be sure,' indeed.

At least she'd made enough. There were five and a half pans of leftovers. Whew.

"I'd better deal with cleanup," Bulma said, rising from her spot, more steadily than last lasagna night. She'd been too busy bringing out dishes to keep up with her own wineglass, though she'd finished at least one. She pulled the empty pans into the kitchen, bringing them over to the industrial dish pit for the bots to deal with. Then she loaded up her family's dishes in the family's washer. This one wouldn't strip the artwork or gold from the china or tarnish the silver, Bulma had designed it herself. It cleaned gently, but effectively.

Her mother swept in partway through and started packaging leftovers with a cheerful hum. "Good job, sweetie, if you keep cooking for him, I'm sure he'll be throwing a ring at you in no time!"

"Mom!" Bulma shouted, outraged. She felt her face burn. "It's _not_ _like that_. I agreed to make lasagna in return for a movie night. Nothing more."

"Oh, I don't know about _that_ , dear. I've noticed how he looks at you," her mother commented, before leaving the kitchen for the dining room again.

 _What?_ Bulma pushed the start button on the dishwasher and it quietly hummed to life. Ok, so he'd been acting weird lately, but not _that_ weird. _Vegeta_? And _her_? Surely not. Ok, he was hot, but so were all her friends. He was an asshole, and he wasn't even her friend. Ok, so maybe recently her parents had managed to condition him into some parody of tameness. But she knew underneath that was still Vegeta, Asshole Prince of Two-and-a-Half Saiyans.

No _way_.

She pushed away the memory of his hand on her wrist – the only time he'd ever touched her willingly. She pushed away the heat of his alien black eyes on her when he thought she wasn't looking. The way they blanked out and got distant and inscrutable lately whenever she smiled after he thanked her at the dinner table, and the other night, when she'd helped him with his late-night binge. She pushed away that ridiculous, suggestive dream of Vegeta propositioning her. Her face hadn't stopped feeling warm since her mother said that.

And then she remembered his snack attack the other night, and the square of chocolate she'd given him, and the way he'd given her a smirk filled with challenge and mischief and made the comment about chocolate being nothing like sex, and her face got even hotter. For all the casual flirtation and dirty comments she'd thrown at him, he'd never responded with anything other than that weird stiff face he made that told her he had reacted and was refusing to acknowledge it. That moment had been the only time he'd ever tossed anything _her_ way that was even _remotely_ sexual. She'd been privately convinced he was asexual, until that moment.

Ugh, there was _absolutely_ no way.

Ridiculous.

* * *

Vegeta had tried to hold it together over supper. Every time _she_ served him, she brought with her a puff of scent, redolent with lasagna, sweat, and _her_. He'd thanked her out of reflex, and she had _smiled_ at him. Every time, it had made him feel like all his balance had fled for just a moment.

The lasagna had been good, though. Every bit as good as Panchy's. Not quite identical – there was more of one of the spices that he didn't know the name of, and the sauce was a little sweeter, but otherwise it was identical in quality.

Panchy was in the kitchen, so he couldn't excuse himself to leave the table. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure if he should excuse himself to Panchy, or to _her_ , seeing as it was _her_ who cooked this time. Vegeta stared at the table. _Damn_ these earthlings and their confusing table etiquette.

"Mom! It's _not like that_ ," _her_ voice rang out from the kitchen, loud enough for him to make out through the door. He cocked an ear, listening. Nothing else. Too quiet to for even his Saiyan senses, with the door there. She sounded pretty outraged. A vision of her with flashing eyes and that thing she did with her teeth when angry that looked like almost like a proper Saiyan snarl snuck into his mind, triggering that dreaded burn in his gut.

Panchy emerged from the kitchen, with that same cheerful, vacuous smile and eyes that never seemed to open. He'd seen them once or twice. They were the same blue as her daughter's. He tried not to think of her daughter's eyes. Or her daughter's _smile_. Something about that expression did weird things to him and he didn't want to acknowledge that.

He decided he wasn't going to wait around. He could train after dinner now; the gravity room was back online. He excused himself, and went straight for his quarters, changing into a pair of training shorts, and then went to train. Impulsively, he cranked the gravities up five levels past his current setting and attempted to exhaust himself. If he didn't exhaust himself, he would no doubt need another very cold shower.


	8. Chapter 8

Finally, after days of other business, Bulma could focus on pulling the data on the armour and making improvements. She sat in the workroom in her quarters, cracked her knuckles, and reached for the bag full of destroyed armour that Vegeta had left for her days ago. It still smelled faintly of Vegeta – sweat, blood, testosterone and musk, and rock dust. She wrinkled her nose at it, dug through the bag of shreds, and found the performance monitoring module. She connected it to her workstation and started pulling the data, while she examined the remains of the armour using a combination of techniques, including visual inspection and an electron microscope.

"Spandex is a complete fail. Composite fibres might work well for the textiles, though I think this could be improved if I can somehow synthesize carbon nanotubes long enough to use…" she muttered to herself, making notes as she worked. "3D printed carbide ceramics are acceptable as plating, but I think if I formed it under tension it might have more strength and impact resistance. I think I can electroform them, but I need a scaffold to make sure the shaping is right."

She looked at the statistical report of the performance analysis. "Held up pretty good, all the same," she noted. She compared it to the results of her materials analysis on the original armour plating he had worn, the remains of which she had deconstructed and investigated for a starting point into her own design. Hers was superior. She smiled. Of course it was. Just because they were aliens didn't mean they were smarter than she was. Of course, she still had to do something about the fabric portion.

She needed a dress form. A very accurate, Vegeta-shaped dress form. One that she could use for electroforming. Bulma went to her 3D modeler and started setting it crunching the hours of footage from the gravity chamber's visual monitoring system. Once it was done, it was a fairly easy and straightforward matter of designing and 3D-printing a life-sized, fully articulated Vegeta dress form.

Her CCIM pinged while she was setting up the dress form in the middle of her floor. She glanced over. "He's regressing," her father had written.

"Threats again?" she typed back, absently.

_Bwoop_. "Yep. They always regress just before training is complete. It's a good sign."

She smirked and went back to her work.

Minutes later, her door burst open, and there was the man himself standing in it, looking agitated, holding an armful of broken training bots.

* * *

Exhausting himself before sleep somehow hadn't stopped the dreams. They'd tormented him all night. He'd had to take another icy shower after waking up. Only Panchy had been in the dining area when he came down, because he'd woken himself up extra early so he could get going extra early on training. He accepted the coffee she offered with sincere gratitude, rather than reflexively trained politeness.

"Didn't you sleep poorly, Vegeta, dear?" Panchy chirped at him, voice full of sweetness.

He did _not_ want to talk about it. He slurped his coffee.

"Try going to bed a little earlier, it always helps me," Panchy smiled.

"Gotta train, need to get stronger," he muttered, working on the contents of the cup. She went to the kitchen and came back out with a pile of eggs and various heavily salted, delicious smoked meats, accompanied by a small mountain of fried potatoes and buttered toast. And more coffee. Damn, he needed the coffee. Since coming to the Briefs' residence, he had developed an appreciation for the awful stuff, and its delightful bitter alkaloid. He thanked Panchy again. She smiled, but at least she didn't touch his hair again.

That had been weird.

Except for contact during battles, or having his injuries tended to, no one touched him. He found himself wondering what it would feel like to have _Panchy's daughter's_ fingers in his hair. He put his drained coffee mug down with a thump, feeling his insides flip.

"More coffee, Vegeta, dear?"

"Yes, please, Panchy," he grated. And thanked her again, when she refilled his cup. And tried not to think of _the woman's_ _fingers_ in his hair.

Fortunately, he finished his morning calorie load before _she_ could make her way down for breakfast and trigger any more of those weird feelings. He thanked Panchy for breakfast and headed off to train.

Keeping the gravities a little higher than his current plateau helped keep him from getting too distracted while he fought the little bots the Briefs had designed. It forced his mind off things. Made him focus. Made him _stronger_. He _needed_ this. Despite feeling no closer to the explosion of power that was Super Saiyan, he knew his strength was increasing steadily.

He _would_ become strong enough to achieve it. He _would_ destroy those androids – he would _not_ be killed by a walking pile of trash and spare parts. He _would_ defeat Kakarot and prove for all time his own power and supremacy, to everyone.

A burst of fury gave him strength, and the answering rush of ki flared in him, roaring. His power spiked for just a moment, and he attacked. Then he had to stop and order the gravity room off, because he'd accidentally wrecked several of the bots. Shit.

Now he'd have to get the man to fix them. Or _her_ , but he really did not want to see her face right now if he could avoid it. The dreams had been bad enough, and they weren't real. He scooped up the robotic remains into a towel and went off in the direction of Dr. Briefs' office.

The man was working on something, cat on his shoulder. He looked up briefly at Vegeta's approach and then resumed his work.

"I need these fixed, _now_ ," Vegeta demanded.

"Not right now, Vegeta, I'm busy on something very important. Ask Bulma to do it," Dr. Briefs said, not even looking up. Vegeta felt a surge of rage.

"I want _you_ to do it, human, or I'll destroy everything in here until you do!" he snapped. No response from Dr. Briefs. No acknowledgement that Vegeta was still even _in the room_. The Saiyan huffed and then stomped out of the office, trying to calm his anger enough to sense for the woman's tiny ki.

In her quarters, probably in that little workroom that was before her private chambers. He'd seen it once or twice, coming for repairs or with various demands. That's where she was right now. When he got there, he was still feeling pretty pissed off. Angrily, he shoved open the door and stepped into the room with his pile of broken scrap.

She was standing there with her hand on her chin, examining what looked to be a full-sized, headless copy of _his body_ , standing in the middle of the room. At his entrance, she cocked her head over her shoulder to look at him.

"What the fuck is _that_ , woman?" he demanded.

"Seriously, what the hell, Vegeta?! Can't you see I'm busy?" the woman snapped.

"Bots," he growled, tossing his burden on the ground in front of him. "Broken. Fix. Now."

"Use your words," she sneered. "And it's a dress form."

"It's _me_." Dress form? He didn't want to wear any _dresses_. There was no way she was going to put him in _women's clothing_. The pink shirt she'd given him ages ago was bad enough. Even if he'd come to like it.

"No _shit_ , how else am I going to make your armour fit your perfectly sculpted body so well? 3D printing only gets me so far, and I'm going to try electroforming the carbide ceramic compound to introduce tension for greater impact resistance, and that means I need a form to shape it to while it's under current. What did you do to the bots _this_ time?" she said, and he wasn't sure what half of it actually _meant_. Except the part about making his armour fit and the bots.

"I got angry and wrecked them," he growled. She made an exasperated huff and turned from the 'dress form' and examined the pile of parts. He leaned wordlessly against the wall with his arms crossed and glowered at her, while she sat cross-legged on the floor and sorted through the destroyed bots, putting parts into three piles. He couldn't go back to training until she was done.

"What are you doing?" he asked, as the piles grew.

"Figuring out which will take minimal effort to repair, which will require _major_ repairs, and which are complete scrap and can be salvaged for parts," she muttered, darkly. "It'll be faster that way. God, Vegeta, did you spare _none_ of the bots this time?"

"Some still functioned, just not _enough_ for a good workout," he deflected.

"So you can't go blow off some steam and let me _work_ in peace?"

His brows knit. "No."

She let out a frustrated breath and pushed a few stray hairs back from her forehead. A streak of grease remained behind, but she didn't seem to notice or care. "Make your pretty self useful and grab the dark grey toolbox from that workbench over there," she demanded, still focused on her task.

"I'm not a servant, woman," he growled. And he was _not_ pretty.

"I never said you _were,_ _your heinie_ , but if you want these bots fixed reasonably quickly so you can go back to your little testosterone arms race with Goku, you _might_ want to step up to help a little," she snarled out, tone mocking. He stiffened at 'your heinie'. It _sounded_ like 'your highness', but he'd since learned it meant 'you ass'.

"Fine!" he snarled, and stalked over to grab the grey toolbox. He put it beside her and returned to leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, glowering as she worked. She pulled out wrenches and screwdrivers and other implements he couldn't identify and started disassembling the ones that she'd written off, and then used the parts to repair the pile she'd called easy to repair. A line of repaired bots slowly grew.

He tried not to notice her unconscious movements – pushing hair back, adjusting a bra strap underneath that overly tight shirt, shifting her seat to make herself more comfortable as she worked, all things she didn't seem aware she was doing or that he was watching. He tried not to notice that as she worked, she was sweating, despite the air conditioning in the room. And as she sweated, he could smell her – that mix of hot woman and flowers. It was distracting.

Finally, she stood up, gathering the pile she'd indicated were 'major repairs' and shoving them into a cloth bag. She shoved all the scrap into another bag. Then, she put on some heavy-looking boots that were sitting by the door. "I need the hot-work shop," she said. "Make yourself useful and carry some of this crap for me."

Wordlessly, he accepted the bags and followed her, going down the lift to the area that led to his new training room, along with a number of offices, labs, and workshops used by Dr. Briefs and the woman. She stomped resolutely down the corridor, punching a code into the code reader at a door he'd never been through. It beeped and opened, lights flickering on, revealing … what looked to be a whole bunch of equipment for working metals. There were several different shapes and sizes of anvils, implements for heating and melting metal, hammers, tongs and other tools, and devices that he didn't recognize. His eyes slid over to the slight form of the woman and he wondered if she could even _lift_ half of this crap.

But as she got to work, it was clear that she was either strong enough to handle everything she was working on or had machines to do it for her. The woman was a genius. He stayed to watch, interested despite himself. Of course, that meant that she would occasionally request that he _help_ , which he stopped arguing with her over, since she didn't waver, and it was all for _his_ sake, anyway. She set a number of machines to making parts, but it seemed some of this process needed her actual direct labour.

"Vegeta, can you start the power hammer for me? Vegeta, I need the rounding hammer. No, not that one, _that's_ the rounding hammer. Vegeta, can you hold _this_ , here, please? Vegeta, pass me that pair of tongs… no, _that_ one, pretty-boy! Vegeta, stand here and hold this and _don't_ fucking move, you hear?" The list of requests grew longer and longer as she worked tirelessly, sweating away at the forge, pounding out metal, machining things, setting computers to fabricating crap, and deftly creating a small multitude of parts and casings. It looked like _way_ more than he thought the number of bots would need, but he was no technologist. He was a little impressed with her industriousness. She might be orders of magnitude weaker than him, but she sure was a hard worker.

She was thoroughly smeared in ash and oxides, save for the clean ring around her eyes where her safety goggles kept stuff out. She was dripping with sweat. And she was focused with such a single-minded intensity on her work that she clearly didn't notice the effect all of this was having on him. Nevertheless, he took very great care to ensure that his crotch was always hidden from her line of sight by any of the many objects in the workshop, just in case. He was starting to feel lightheaded, and he didn't think it was the heat, which would have been a nice day back on his home planet, before Frieza had destroyed it.

Once or twice, the little thing sucked back water from a squeeze bottle and then drizzled some over her head and he just about lost it.

What the fuck was _wrong_ with him? How was she doing this to him? And worst of all, she didn't even appear to be trying, or aware of it. He was determined not to give it away. If she found out the effect she was having on him, he had no doubt the comments would only get _worse_. She'd go for the kill if she knew, there was no doubt about it.

Gods, the sooner he got Super Saiyan and got the hell _off_ this planet, the _better_. The other two years and some months until the androids came were going to be awful.

Finally, she seemed to be coming to a stop. She surveyed the casings she'd built, sitting in some kind of kiln, still holding a hammer in one hand. "I'll heat treat and temper them tomorrow. We can clean up in here," she said. He suppressed a sigh and wordlessly pitched in, extremely mindful of her potential gaze.

His stomach rumbled loudly and reminded him that he had missed lunch and that it was probably close to supper. She glanced over at the noise, and he was grateful for his foresight to put the anvil between them. He'd been at half-mast off and on, pretty much the entire afternoon.

"We forgot lunch," she commented.

"Hadn't noticed," he said. His stomach roared again. He eyed her, tentatively. She still smelled like hot metal, ash, and _woman_. She smelled divine. It overpowered the growling of his gut for a moment. He considered ordering her to go shower the way she sometimes did him, but somehow, he figured 'you stink, go shower' would _not_ go over well with her, even if she'd previously said it to _him_. And she didn't _stink_ , not really. No, it was _worse_. "We should probably wash, or your mother will turn us away from the dinner table," he finally managed, choosing his words carefully.

She snorted, pulling off the goggles. Her eyes sparkled out of clear spots surrounded by smudges of black dust. She wiped a sleeve over her brow, smearing soot and grease. "Yeah, you're right. Um… these have to sit in the annealing oven all night, they won't be done until the morning. I'll get up early and finish them, ok?"

He nodded, leaning on the anvil for support. He was hungry, and he wanted her. He didn't want to speak.

"Dear gods, I'm filthy," she said. He said nothing, trying not to think of how appealing that filthy woman looked and smelled right now.

"Hey Vegeta?" she said, eyes lifting to meet his. He froze, returning her look warily. "Thanks for the help."

He grunted, breaking eye contact. "Thanks for doing it." It came out quiet and low-voiced, almost soft, entirely before he could think about it.

The workshop put back in order, they left. Vegeta made sure to get ahead of her so she couldn't see as easily if a stray patch of her scent hit him, or his unruly thoughts crossed into dangerous territory. They made their way back to the living space of the compound in silence. Or, in silence until she spoke.

"Vegeta?" she asked, voice hesitant. He paused and looked back at her, puzzled. "Since it's gonna be tomorrow before the rest of those bots are ready, do you want to watch a movie with me tonight? I can't offer lasagna this time, though, I have to get _some_ work done."

A movie? He sighed. "With the zombies?" he asked, not sure he wanted to see that stupid shit a second time.

She smirked. "No, the next one won't be out for months. I'll let you pick something, if you want."

"Okay," he said. There was a flash of surprise on her face, like she really didn't expect him to agree so easily. "Make popcorn again," he muttered, resuming his path.

"You got it, hot stuff! Extra butter!" she chirped.

The found their rooms, and Vegeta made a beeline for his shower. The soot and grime had to be washed off with hot water and plenty of soap – unfortunately, it wouldn't come off in cold water. He still managed to squeeze a few minutes in under the icy torrent, trying to get his heart rate down and his cock to behave. Finally, he finished up and headed to supper, pulled along by the roar of his stomach.


	9. Chapter 9

Holy crap, she'd spent nearly the entire day with Vegeta, and despite his entrance in the morning, he _hadn't_ been an asshole. At all. He'd just done what she'd asked, capably and efficiently, with hardly any attitude at all, once they got down to the shop.

He must have _really_ wanted those bots fixed, mused Bulma. Why, he even agreed to a movie night.

He beat her to the dining room, she noted when she arrived. Well, it had taken a lot of effort to get all that soot and grime off. Iron oxide ground its way into _everything_ , in a smithy. Everyone thought rust was red. Sure, _slow_ rust was red. Fast rust, in a forge, was dark grey and powdery and got in everything – her hair, under her nails, ground into her skin. It took a lot of washing to get off.

Vegeta sat in silence at the table with her father, watching her as she took her seat. She could hear his stomach growling from where she sat, obviously attempting to avoiding look at the mango lassi on the table before him. Poor, starving Saiyan. She hoped Mom made extra tonight. She also missed lunch, and she could smell the mouth-watering spices of butter chicken, korma, vindaloo, and tikka masala.

Panchy glided out of the kitchen with a tray loaded with a huge rice pilaf, piles of naan and poppadum, and a large assortment of Indian dishes. She made multiple trips to get it all out. Vegeta looked like he wasn't sure what to do when the rest of the Briefs started serving themselves, a complete departure from Panchy's usual dinner etiquette. He looked like he was about to panic at the thought of making a faux pas and missing out on food.

"You're supposed to serve yourself and wait for everyone to have food on their plate. Eat with your fingers, don't use your left hand," Bulma murmured, knowing his sharp ears would catch it. His eyes flicked to her, looking surprisingly grateful. He immediately started scooping food onto his plate, and, seeing as he was the last one dished up, began eating the moment he saw Panchy start.

Bulma was hungry enough that she went for seconds, and thirds. Vegeta seemed to relish the lack of utensils and was packing away his customary huge quantity. Panchy kept bringing out new dishes, and he kept eating them.

"What did you _do_ today, sweetie?" her mother addressed her pointedly, noticing her appetite.

"All day at the forge," Bulma replied, between bites.

"I thought that might be the case. You usually don't eat like that unless you've been working hard," her mother smiled. "Good thing I made enough!"

Like Bulma's appetite could be even a drop in the bucket compared to the mass that Vegeta could pack away in a single sitting. Bulma grinned. "We missed lunch."

"Oh, was Vegeta with you? I thought the leftovers fridge looked like it hadn't been raided. You two must have been _very_ busy in the forge together, to forget lunch." Her mother smiled mischievously. Bulma flushed. _She_ knew what her mother was implying.

Apparently, so did Vegeta. His face froze in that expression he always made whenever Bulma made a naughty crack. His eyes slid over to her mother, and then over to her, warily. She was acutely aware that she was blushing, and it was getting worse. The corner of his lips twitched suddenly, and he broke eye contact, renewing his interest on food.

Bulma choked down a swallow of mango lassi, silently cursing her beloved mother.

They finished dinner, and even Vegeta seemed to have eaten enough. Her dad let out a belch, gaining a look of surprise from the Saiyan. Then Panchy followed suit with a demure little burp, and Vegeta's eyebrows rose. Bulma focused, sucked in air, and let out a nice, loud rippling burp. She thought she'd accounted well for herself – all that time spent around competitive men since she was a teen had taught her the trick of it. Vegeta's eyes darted to her. 'Just do it,' she mouthed at him. He looked skeptical, but managed to produce a crackling, impressive belch of his own, followed by a tentative glace at her mother to make sure he hadn't done something that might get him denied her cooking in the future.

"I'm so pleased everyone enjoyed the meal," smiled Panchy.

Bulma rose to help her mother clean up. "I'll make popcorn, you pick the movie," she said to Vegeta, before going into the kitchen. Her mother arrived shortly after with more dishes and serving vessels.

"Watching a movie with him?" Panchy asked, archly.

"It's just a movie, Mom," Bulma sighed.

"Of course it is, dear," Panchy agreed, too easily.

"He doesn't like me, Mom," she protested.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," her mother smirked.

"I don't _like_ him, Mom." _I_ don't _like him… I_ don't _like him… I_ don't _like him_ , she repeated it in her head like a mantra, like she was trying to prove it to herself.

"Are you _sure_? He's a good man. And I _do_ think he likes you. You could do a lot worse than a hard working, handsome fellow like Vegeta."

"We are _not_ having this discussion, Mom," she barked, a little more loudly than she intended. Her face burned. She _couldn't_ like Vegeta. He was an arrogant, pushy asshole who had gotten some of her friends killed and hurt the rest of them, even though they'd all been brought back to life. Her mom could _never_ find out about that.

_But he hasn't tried to kill any of them since he was resurrected, and now he is fighting for_ us, she thought. And she remembered the feel of his eyes on her, the touch of his hand on her wrist, again. She remembered his grace in combat, the power in his lean, perfect form, the feeling of his ki as he fought, which even _she_ could feel when he unleashed it. She remembered the hilarious awkward frozen look he made any time her raunchy barbs hit home. She remembered the way he seemed to blank out lately whenever she smiled at him. She kept coming back to that touch, and part of her wondered what would happen if he touched her again.

God damnit, she was 30. She shouldn't be having these kinds of reactions and thoughts. Wasn't that for teenagers?

"Whatever you say, honey," Panchy said. "I _do_ want grandchildren, you know."

" _Mom_!" she howled. Panchy just laughed.

* * *

The women were in the kitchen and he didn't know if he could leave the table or not. He sat patiently. The food had been very good, but he had been shocked when everyone burped like that. Panchy was a stickler for manners. But she'd burped, too. And, so had _the woman_ , an impressive display, for a _woman_. He could not let himself be outdone there. She'd indicated it was proper. He'd let loose. Panchy only smiled. The right thing to do. He wasn't getting exiled from the dinner table on _this_ night.

But when was he to leave? Vegeta sat silently, cursing bizarre Earth dining customs, for the most recent time. Why did they always have to keep changing the rules, when he was just starting to get used to them?

"We are _not_ having this discussion, Mom," he overheard her voice. Followed by a loud, protesting cry of "Mom!" He strongly suspected they were talking about him, again. He couldn't make out the conversation, again. Curse that door. Why were they discussing _him_?

And then he'd remembered Panchy's suggestive comment, the one which implied that they'd been acting out in the woman's smithy something like what Vegeta had been dreaming of the last few nights, and the way the woman had turned _bright red_. And he wondered if it was such a _bad_ thing if they were discussing _him_ … the woman could dish it out, but it seems she couldn't _take_ it.

He almost smiled.

"Don't worry, Vegeta, you can go. Panchy won't banish you from the dining table. I believe Bulma gave you a task," Dr. Briefs interrupted his thoughts. He looked up. The man was smoking one of those smelly sticks, nose in a magazine.

"Thanks," Vegeta said, rising.

But when he got to the home theatre, he realized that he had no clue how to operate any of this shit. The tiny, intricately labeled buttons on the controls were nonsense to him. He tried the red button. It started up the screen, but then he didn't know where to go from there. So, he sat in the same seat he'd sat in last time and waited for the woman.

When she arrived at the door to the room, he looked over to see her carrying a huge load of popcorn and looking slightly flustered. He tracked her movement in silence as she came and deposited the popcorn between them. "Couldn't find anything you liked?" she asked.

"Don't know how to make it work," he replied, quietly embarrassed by his lack of knowledge of what must have been a fairly simple matter for any earthling.

She looked a little struck by this. "Oh, I'm sorry, Vegeta. I forgot, you probably had different entertainment systems in space," she remarked.

Yeah… she could say that. They hadn't had movies. Instead, Frieza had death matches between anyone who failed him egregiously enough, and everyone turned out to watch the outcome, even Vegeta. There was always alcohol, or other psychotropic substances, which he'd skip because he didn't want to get caught by one of his rivals with his senses dulled. Or pleasure women, good for a quick release and not much more. He'd usually skipped those after the first couple of times and the novelty wore off, there wasn't much point to it. Training was better. He wasn't about to mention any of this to the woman – he knew his past disturbed her. He suspected she would be aghast at this. For some reason, he didn't want her to be aghast at his life, right now.

But she hadn't seemed to acknowledge the fact that he wasn't saying anything, instead she was making the movie playing thing work.

"Do you know what you wanna watch?" she asked.

"I don't know what the choices are," he replied, flatly. A list of pictures and words started coming up on the screen, flashy images designed to grab attention and appeal to viewers. There was a variety of them, arranged in horizontal lines by what appeared to be theme or mood. Some were bright and colourful, some involved men and women in close poses, some were dark and covered in fireballs, and some looked like natural scenes. There sure were a lot of them.

"Let's see here… somehow I doubt you want to watch a romcom…" she said.

"What's that?"

"Romantic comedy. A stupid man and a stupid woman doing stupid things to avoid acknowledging the fact that they were meant to be together, thrown together in an idiot plot that would never have occurred if any of them had enough brains to think for a moment."

"Like a 'bodice-ripper?'" he asked. She snorted.

"No, even dumber and less sex, because a kid might be watching." Her tone was contemptuous. "Oh, hey, they have _The 40-Year-Old Virgin_."

He grimaced. "Not interested."

She snorted at his statement. "Didn't think so. Hmm… probably not kid's cartoons, but maybe anime…" she trailed off, flipping through selections. "Probably not horror…"

Horror? He perked up. "What's that?"

"Dark, dramatic movies with a lot of grisly murders and dismemberments, scenes designed to shock and terrify…" Well, _that_ sounded like fun! But she was continuing. "Lots of jump scares and stuff designed to freak you out. Really not much fun to watch unless you have someone to cuddle with through all the shocking bits, and I doubt you're the cuddling type…" she said, tone dry.

He'd never _cuddled_ anything in his _life_ , so no, he wasn't the cuddling type. Anyhow, having the woman in his personal space, close enough to touch… oh, that sounded _dangerous_. "Naw," he said. "What's that?" Her selector had lingered over a picture of a green forest.

"Nature documentary on rainforests. I like documentaries, but I don't know if you want to sit through one," she said. "They're… _educational_." She said the word like it meant something boring to others. It might actually be interesting – his involvement with nature had usually been slogging through it, eating whatever he could catch, and looking for populations to cull. He never really had time to stop and study what was around him. But he was intrigued by all the ones with fireballs.

"What's the one with the explosions?" he asked.

She snorted again. "Action movies. I like them. Lots of excitement and things getting blown up."

"Let's watch one of those."

"Sure."

"You pick one, I don't know anything about these."

"Uh, yeah. Hmm. How about I just pick one of these… I don't think I've seen _Assassination Royale_ yet."

"What's that?"

She proceeded to read something off the screen. "Let's see, here… _'32 elite manhunters vie for the position of Emperor's assassin in a kill-or-be-killed battle royale.'_ Sounds good."

"Do it," he agreed. She killed the lights and started the movie. He enjoyed huge handfuls of popcorn, watching the flickering screen intently. The movie was a lot better than the one with zombies, which had just been stupid. This one involved characters who weren't very powerful, but they were incredibly creative in how they delivered death from the shadows, and skilled enough that Vegeta enjoyed it. The characters sliced, stabbed, dismembered, poisoned, trapped, strangled, and blew each other up in a variety of interesting ways. The plot centred around a husband and wife team of assassins struggling to survive a last-man-standing competition. He wondered how the movie would resolve the need for them to kill each other, or if one of the other characters would turn it into a vengeance tale.

Good movie. He munched popcorn, enjoying the salty, buttery crunch, even though he'd learned from the last time that he'd be picking bits of kernels from his teeth for days.

He reached for a handful of popcorn at the same time _she_ did. In the pile of warm, crunchy puffed grains, their hands accidentally touched. Vegeta felt sudden heat and an electric sensation flood through him, like he'd brushed up against a loose wire or something. He sensed her stiffening in her seat. For a moment, he couldn't move. His insides flipped. Then he resolutely broke contact, grasping some corn.

She didn't comment, but he could smell a sharp scent on her. Embarrassment? Or something else? He wasn't sure. But he was thankful she hadn't put on one of those 'horror' movies, because if he'd had to have her close to him, he wouldn't be able to _stand_ it. His heart rate was going up, more than it had even after pitched battles.

She gave up on the popcorn after that, and he wasn't sure if it was because she'd had enough or because she didn't want to touch _him_ again. Some part of him hoped it was because she'd had enough popcorn.

He tried to force himself calm and focus on the movie. It was coming to a deciding point. He crunched through the rest of the popcorn as the two assassins scythed through the remaining contestants, coming to stand before the Emperor himself. The Emperor demanded they kneel, which they did. And then he told them to rise and fight. On the screen, the husband and wife fought each other ferociously. And then Vegeta grinned as the characters turned as one and killed the Emperor.

"Nice," he muttered, chomping the last of the popcorn. If only _he_ could have been the one to kill Frieza. Oh well, at least he was _free_ , now. Kind of like those two in the movie. The last few scenes showed their triumphant emergence into the rising sun, weapons in one hand and holding each other with the other. The music changed to something loud and energetic and a whole bunch of meaningless text started to scroll across the screen. "Good movie."

"I'm glad you liked it," she said.

"Did you?"

"Yeah, I like this kind of thing," she agreed. Hmm. Well, if there was more like this out there, maybe he wouldn't mind watching a movie now and then with the woman.

She turned the lights on and washed her hands, and Vegeta figured he'd better do the same. They were greasy from the popcorn. She gathered up the big bowl and took it off to be cleaned, and he accompanied her. It only seemed fair; she did all the work in setting this up when he was supposed to pick the movie. Not that he could.

The big bowl placed into the care of the cleaner bots, they headed back to their quarters. They slowed outside of Vegeta's quarters. She was looking at him, like she wanted to say something. He met her eyes resolutely, trying to ignore the sudden thundering inside his chest.

"Thanks for watching the movie with me, Vegeta. I had fun. Goodnight." She gave him a soft little smile that made him feel like something grabbed him by the insides and squeezed, and then she turned to go down the hall.

Without thinking, he reached and took her wrist. She stilled, turning to face him, and the world seemed to slow. Three heartbeats, impossibly far apart, and he was pulling her towards him, his free arm around her, mouth descending on hers.

He felt electrified, like current flowed through her and into him. His skin felt like it was on fire. In his arms, she stiffened, eyes wide, and then seemed to collapse. He'd never kissed anyone before and didn't know if he was doing it correctly, but she seemed to be kissing back. Her eyes were half-lidded and her cheeks pink, and she made a small, high sound.

The strength of his legs strangely evaporated, and he stumbled forward a few steps, ending up leaning against the wall, supporting himself with one arm, pressed up against _her_. She tasted like popcorn and smelled increasingly more divine as he explored her mouth. He could feel her nipples poking his chest. He had no doubt that _she_ could feel the raging hardon that he thought might just destroy his pants outright; she was practically melted onto him. One of her hands had somehow found its way under his shirt to the centre of his back, and the other was in his _hair_. It felt good enough to make him moan into her lips and close his eyes in surrender, renewing the intensity of the kiss.

His insides felt like they'd gone supercritical. His heart pounded harder than it had since his very first kill as a brat. His need for air was getting intense. He finally had to break off, just to breathe. Her eyes were on his, languid and astonished. She was flushed and breathing as hard and ragged as he was. She looked disheveled and slightly confused. She was breathtaking.

Resolutely, he fought to get a grip over his own body and mind. _What the_ hell _had he just done?_ There was a long silence with nothing but them attempting to catch their breath and searching each other's gaze.

Finally, he broke the entente, taking a deep breath. "Goodnight, Bulma," he whispered, and then used his superior speed to flee to his rooms and close the door fast enough that she couldn't see what kind of effect this had had on him.

Oh gods, there weren't enough cold showers in the _world_ to make _this_ go away! No pleasure woman had ever made him feel like _this_. He spent 15 minutes trying to get control of himself, failed, and finally gave up with a curse and started touching himself, his mind filled with nothing but Bulma.


	10. Chapter 10

Bulma stood with her back against the wall and tried to focus on breathing. Seriously, _what the hell just happened_? One moment she was wishing Vegeta a good night and turning to go to bed, and the next moment he was _kissing_ her. And it was _hot as fuck_ and she _liked it_. A _lot_.

Honestly, who knew Vegeta could kiss like that? And, holy _shit_ , Vegeta was _packing heat_. Of all the things she never thought she'd be a witness to, hot and bothered Vegeta was probably close to the top of the list.

And then he'd wished her a good night, said her _name_ for the first time in her conscious recollection, and fled. Leaving _her_ all hot and bothered, too, and wondering what the fuck to do _now_.

Go to bed, obviously. If she could even _sleep_ , after _that_.

She made her way to her rooms on unsteady feet, and then stood in the workroom that was the first part of her rooms, looking confusedly at the bots on the floor. Oh yeah. Right. She had to finish those in the morning. She took a deep breath. Work always helped with anything that was wrong.

She stumbled into the bedroom, set her alarm for way too early in the morning, stripped off her clothes, slipped on a nightie, and fell into bed. But sleep was restless and disturbed – Bulma kept waking up from a variety of dreams, all featuring Vegeta. Vegeta standing over the corpses of her friends with a smirk; Vegeta destroying everything she loved and slinging her over his shoulder like some kind of cave man prize; Vegeta fucking her in a cracked and ravaged wasteland while she begged – one moment for mercy, the next moment for more. It was nothing but blood, sex, and Vegeta, and when her alarm went off at 4, it was almost a relief.

She still groaned, getting out of bed, feeling creaky at the ripe old age of 30. But she hauled herself up and did the bare minimum for hygiene – brush teeth, wash face, not even mascara, hair in a brusque, messy clip. Sweatpants and a tank, again, and the most comfortable sports bra she owned. She went to the workroom and gathered up the fixed bots in a bag, intending to take them down with her. The gravity room had been reconstructed down in the sub-basement, in a huge underground hangar that they weren't really using for anything. It was more accessible for lab work and repairs, kept Vegeta out of the potential eyes of the public, and the new gravity chamber wasn't a spaceship anymore so there was no potential need for air access.

Lacing on her steel-toed work boots, she headed for the hot-work shop.

Hours later, she had heat treated and tempered all the casings, and had most of them assembled. She produced bot after bot, intending not only to replace the ones he'd destroyed yesterday but create a stockpile so that her work wouldn't be disturbed the _next_ time he destroyed a bunch of bots unexpectedly.

Finally finished, Bulma piled all of the fixed and newly created bots on a shelved trolley and wheeled it into the hangar outside the gravity chamber, rolling it into a place where it was in casual view of a security camera so she could check inventory easily, and locking the casters. Then she secured another empty shelved trolley and locked it into place beside the first. Then she slipped into one of the offices she used, grabbed two large pieces of paper and a sharpie, and drew two posters.

The first one said 'GOOD BOTS,' and had a cartoon picture of a fully functional bot flashing a victory sign and a finger-gun. The second said 'DEAD BOTS,' and had a cartoon picture of a busted bot with X X eyes and a tongue sticking out, and little stars floating around it. She was just leaning back from taping up the posters when _he_ sauntered into the hanger. Oh yeah, it was about the time he normally finished packing in breakfast. She felt it the moment he arrived and turned to face him. He halted, staring at her, like he hadn't expected to run into her here.

For a moment they just stood there, looking at each other. He made no move to continue and she couldn't figure out what was going on in his head, only that his eyes were glued to her. It made her feel suddenly self conscious and she could feel her face warm. She broke the silence. "I fixed them and made a bunch of extras. When you need to replace a broken bot, put it on _this_ trolley – that says 'DEAD BOTS,'" she said, indicating the sign. "Then you can take a new one from _this_ trolley – that says 'GOOD BOTS,' and when the pile of scrap gets big enough I'll take a day and fix them or make new ones."

He said nothing. Bulma resisted the urge to ask him if he understood. She knew damn well he understood. And then, he gave her a tiny nod of acknowledgement, broke eye contact, and moved faster than she could see, obviously heading for the gravity chamber. She felt the breeze of his passing, and looked at the trolleys. The stack of good bots was down several members.

 _Okaaaaaaay_ , seems Vegeta was a little fucked up after last night. Weird, because _he_ was the one who kissed _her_.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't had breakfast yet at all. She headed upstairs, stopping at her rooms to wash the worst of the soot off her face and arms, and went for the dining room. Her father was already in his office at work. Her mother was sitting with a cup of coffee at the table doing Sudoku.

"Good morning, sweetie, getting up late?" Panchy asked.

"Nope, was up early, had to fix bots," Bulma responded, plopping into the chair with her elbows on the table. She rested her forehead on her hands and massaged her temples with her thumbs. "Any breakfast left?"

"Vegeta ate every last speck, but I can cook you some eggs," her mother offered.

"No, that's ok, I'll make it," she said, and rose to get up. Panchy's hand on her shoulder stilled her.

"I'll make you some eggs and toast, extra marmalade. You just sit there and have a coffee, lovie," her mother smiled. Panchy got her coffee, black and clearly the last from an old pot. Bulma didn't care. She drank it anyway, idly scanning a tech blog on her phone. Out came the promised eggs, over-easy and still steaming, on hot, buttered toast, accompanied with more hot toast with butter and marmalade.

"Thanks, Mom," Bulma said, with unfeigned gratitude, and started to eat.

She'd finished eating and was working on a third cup (fresh, this time), when her mother spoke. "So, is he good in bed?"

Bulma accidentally inhaled some of her coffee and started coughing violently. Her face flaming, she grimaced at her mother, who was the smiling picture of innocence. " _Mom!_ It's not _like_ that!"

"Neither of you looked like you got much _sleep_ last night, love," Panchy smiled guilelessly.

"We didn't sleep together," she protested, looking at the table. "He kissed me, though." She stared resolutely at the knot in the middle of the table, muttering out the confession.

"Is he a good kisser, at least?"

Bulma took another sip of coffee. "Yes," she admitted, flatly. Panchy's smile widened.

"I _told_ you he was interested," her mother grinned. Bulma groaned and rubbed her forehead.

"You don't understand, Mom. We _can't_."

"Whyever not, honey? You're young, single, and wealthy enough that you can make a love match. He's around your age, hard working, single, very handsome, and far steadier than Yamcha. Yamcha is a sweet boy, but he's a bit of a flake. Vegeta is a _much_ better match for you, and both your father and I like him."

 _What_?! Her parents had _discussed this_? Bulma wanted to whine and protest. There was _no_ way. Vegeta was a stone-cold killer, he'd been plundering planets when she was still on the floor in a dinosaur onesie disassembling play bots with plastic tools.

"Besides, I think he's pretty close to being housebroken," Panchy supplied with a grin.

Bulma gave an amused snort at that. "Yeah, he was a little rough around the edges at first, wasn't he?"

"A little," Panchy agreed, mildly. Bulma smiled despite herself. Vegeta had started out a real terror: cold, imperious, arrogant, prickly with pride, full of threats and bluster and insistence on deference due his to superior rank and strength, and _no_ table manners to speak of. That had slowly dropped off into nothing more than a gruff attitude and the occasional outburst about being a prince, and his table manners had improved to the point where Bulma thought she might even be able to take him out in _public_. Operant conditioning. She giggled.

"Thanks for breakfast, Mom. I've got work I have to get done. I'll see you at lunch, maybe, or at dinner for sure," Bulma said, rising. Her mom got up, pulling her into a hug, and then kissed her cheek.

"Have a good day, sweetie."

"Thanks," Bulma said. She cleaned up her dishes and headed back to her workroom. She hoped to put some solid work into the newest version of the armour.

* * *

Given his behaviour when they had accidentally met outside the gravity room that morning, Bulma fully expected he would probably be a bit weird at supper. And he was. Vegeta studiously refused to look in her direction or even acknowledge that she existed. It was kind of funny.

The next morning, at breakfast, he was still doing it. At dinner that night, it was no longer funny and starting to get a little annoying and insulting. Damn that hot and cold bastard! Why even kiss her if he was going to freak out and act like even more of an ass than usual?

At breakfast after several days of him pretending she didn't exist, she calmly reminded him that she would need the Vegeta-ki-monitor back at some point so she could dump the data. He wordlessly pulled it off and slid it across the table at her, without ever looking at her or acting like he'd heard.

Now, she was mildly pissed off. But he zipped off to go train and she had data to dump on this monitoring device so she could finish programming the safety system for the room. Right now, it was uncontrolled, and if he fucked up it could blow again.

Fortunately, enough days had gone by that she had a magnificent dataset. The bracelet had functioned exactly as intended and he hadn't destroyed it, and now she was looking at an extensive graph of many days of Vegeta activity. Her visualizer displayed the ki in a filled line plot, colourized by intensity, overlaid with line graphs for other metrics such as brain activity, body temperature, heart rate, galvanic response, blood oxygenation, and respiration. The data told a very interesting tale about the mental state of her resident Saiyan prince.

There were three distinct phases of Vegeta-ki-output, she noted. Active-combat Vegeta, where his ki blasted through the charts in more or less a sustained, consistently high output that occasionally dipped or spiked but never dropped below a certain level unless he stopped combat entirely. Dips were either gentle downward curves or sudden sustained drops where he was clearly throttling himself, rises were _always_ sharp and quick, and often spikes. Output was high almost always during the times when he was training. She could see that as he got used to a new gravity-rating plateau, his overall graph started to fall, spiking back up to previous levels when he cranked up the gravities. She had some data from before the gravity room was repaired, and lots of data from after. He definitely worked harder in the gravity room. Almost all the metrics were consistently higher in the gravity room – heart rate, brain activity, respiration, galvanic response, body temperature, and of course, ki.

Then there was sleeping Vegeta, where his ki dropped to a minimum and then followed a gentle curve that precisely corresponded to his sleep phases – captured through the other metrics – with little peaks and troughs that matched REM phases but never went over a maximum threshold. She noticed that he had not been sleeping well by human standards, but maybe that was normal for his species. But then again, maybe it wasn't, her mother had been commenting on his apparent lack of rest at the breakfast table and fussed over him.

Lastly, there was wakeful Vegeta-at-rest, where his ki was moderated, controlled, and level at a rate significantly above sleep level but well below his combat output. There were some dips and spikes – most of the dips were gradual falls which rose up again, but the spikes were strewn randomly throughout the phase. Spikes seemed to occur more often in little clusters at rest – usually they did not occur in the morning before breakfast, during lunch, or after supper on most days. Except for a few places. There were a few anomalous areas in the graph, places where he was at rest and then suddenly there were consistent and regular signs of agitation – spiking hard, with increases in heart rate, respiration, and galvanic response that didn't otherwise occur except in the training room. She puzzled at the graph.

And then she mapped out the timestamps… those were all times when he had been around _her_. Mealtime sneaky glances – spike, spike, spike. Her tending his wounds – spike, spike, spike. Late-night snack attack – spike, spike, spike. The day at the hot-work shop, which should have been mostly resting state after the combat-output chart stopped, was littered with little random spikes and high curves throughout the whole time. Same with the movie, with one _big_ spike about two thirds through, followed by frequent jittery spikes right up until the movie ended, then a series of surging jagged curves paired with the highest heart rate she had recorded, a steady drop in blood oxygenation, and an intense galvanic response.

Right when he'd kissed her.

Immediately afterwards, his chart was a chaotic mess, followed by one last huge spike, and then it dropped off into restfulness and eventually sleep. And over the next few days, there had been nothing but little spikes whenever he was in her presence, and biological signs showing a sustained state of agitation.

Well, if the _kiss_ hadn't told her that Mom was right about Vegeta's interest, the graphs sure told the tale. Holy crap, Mom was right…

This cold act was pretty much just an act. Those charts told a different story. The data were undeniable. Every time she was anywhere near him, he was going completely crazy inside.

She found herself blushing. Sitting in front of her computer, _blushing_ , over the hard data evidence that her asshole Saiyan prince houseguest obviously had the hots for her. _Bad_.

Bulma was honestly not sure what to make of this new information. Inside her was a little flutter that she wasn't sure she wanted to process right now. There was a part of her that was clearly saying 'would that be _so_ bad?' He _was_ undeniably hot. And that kiss… She tried not to think about the feel of his lips, the heat of his body against hers, firm as a mountain, but his hands on her, so gentle. She felt momentarily dizzy.

She jerked her thoughts back to work. At least, she had _more_ than enough data to program a safety shut-off into the gravity room. She dumped the data into the adaptive neural network skeleton she'd already programmed into the system in anticipation of receiving the dataset. The sensors were already built into place, with similar capacities as the bracelet to monitor and detect both Vegeta's ki and other biological metrics that could be gathered without physical contact. She set parameters, giving the neural network instructions to instantly cut the gravities to earth-normal and cut power to the bots if Vegeta's output dropped rapidly below minimum rest levels or into true unconsciousness or if signs of injury occurred. Given that his brain states were very close to human, she could theorize that loss of consciousness other than sleep, or serious injury, would graph very close to human graphs. She programmed it in. The system would continue to monitor, update, and refine itself based on his usage with little input from her, though she could definitely keep an eye on it.

Finished, she activated the system. She set up a push notification to her phone with an audible alert if he went down, just in case. And then, she programmed it to send her a less obtrusive notice if he showed signs of injury without loss of consciousness. No more trying to hide it, mister Badman!

Then, she went back and took a look at his combat-state performance graph, an idea niggling at her mind. Right now, he was manually cranking up the gravities and changing the bot attack program whenever he felt he needed to up his training regime. This created a series of sudden rises and slow drop offs down to a point where he clearly felt things had gotten too easy and he needed to push himself. She could probably work out an algorithm to create an ideal workout for him, one that would push him consistently into the zone of proximal development, and one that he couldn't predict or get bored with. Fingers flying over the keys, she quickly programmed in something to take in data from the sensor grid and calculate an optimized workout solution for him. She set it to monitor and calculate, and then leaned back from her console, satisfied.

Her phone beeped, the custom noise she had finished programming in not even half an hour ago. Bulma snorted. Already? She switched tasks on her console, pulling up the visual monitoring system which had provided her with so many hours of movement for the 3D modelling of the custom dress form. He was standing over a bot that appeared to have exploded somehow (they were designed specifically _not_ to do that), peppering him with a spray of shrapnel. No serious damage to a Saiyan, but there was some blood speckling his workout outfit and a lot of little metal pieces stuck in him. She saw him grimace in annoyance and start to pick bits out of himself.

Quickly, she flipped over to the live graphing of the monitoring system she'd just activated and replayed the footage synced to the graph. He looked like he was fighting normally on the visuals, but there had been a rise in heartrate, signs of agitation in his brainwaves, and then an unexpected surge in his ki, and then he did something and the bot blew up. He'd clearly gotten distracted by something (thoughts of _her_ , perhaps?) and lost control of his ki. She snorted again and went to get the medical kit and a pan for the shrapnel. No _way_ he was going to try to sneak past her with a dark shirt at dinner.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad you guys seem to be enjoying it. I know that 3-year-gap stories are a dime a dozen and are something of a rite of passage for VeggieBul lovers, but I hope you're finding this one worth the time investment.

Trying not to think of _Bulma_ was nearly impossible. He'd been trying his hardest since _that night_ , but the woman kept creeping into his mind at the worst moments. He tried to ignore her during the times of the day where avoiding her wasn't easy and tried to push himself not to think about her when he was alone. But it was hard, a lot harder than he thought it would be.

Vegeta was feeling more than a little frustrated these days.

That other morning, after _the kiss_ , he hadn't seen her at breakfast and wondered what it meant. But then he'd caught her unexpectedly outside his gravity room, setting up something with the bots. He hadn't prepared himself to run into her, and it was awkward.

Today, she'd asked for the monitoring bracelet back, which, to be perfectly honest, he had long since forgotten he was wearing, other than to make sure it didn't get wrecked. He'd passed it back as quickly as he could, trying to minimize the potential for interaction. He wanted to avoid losing control again, and the humiliation of being stuck rock hard with only his hands to seek release.

Once more, he reflected on the difference between Bulma and pleasure women. Pleasure women hadn't ever gotten him _excited_ like that. He'd never kissed one – why bother? There was no real attraction to them, even if they were among the most beautiful physical specimens that Frieza could enslave. They were more or less just _there_ , receptacles for his urges. When he'd been a teen, he'd started making use of them, but eventually he lost interest. It was honestly kind of boring, just fifteen minutes or so of effort and a quick release, then leave, shower, and forget about it. The deathmatches got him _much_ more excited. Plus, he could learn what battle moves the survivors made, just in case he had to watch out for them at a later date.

Bulma was clearly _different_. Her scent intrigued and excited him, especially when she'd been working hard in the kitchen or the 'hot-work shop'. The sight of her did funny things to his stomach, particularly those little candid moments where she was clearly unaware of the effect she was having on him. Like that night when she'd made him late-night food and hadn't tried to push his buttons for nearly a half hour solid – just been all _nice_ and stuff. Or when she gave him those _smiles_ , eyes bright, soft and genuine, free of any of her usual sly vulgarity and sass. Hell, even the _sass_. Or the way she'd looked and smelled that night, after he'd broke off the kiss. Like she was as confused and astounded as he was. Like she'd _enjoyed_ it, as much as he had.

Gods, he wanted to do it to her _again_! And _more_. This was _not_ a state any Saiyan prince should find himself in!

His energy surged uncontrollably at the stray thought and he accidentally discharged an unplanned, uncontrolled ki blast, a lot stronger than he'd expected. He tried to control it with his will after it had left his body, and accidentally caused it to veer into a bot and surge again. There was an explosion, the smell of smoke and burning electronics, and he barked out a verbal command to the room and the bots to be disabled. They lowered to the floor around him, and Vegeta tried to figure out how many he'd ruined _this_ time.

Only one, it seemed. But it was all over the gravity chamber, and all over _him_. He looked down at himself in annoyance, noticing shards of metal _everywhere_ , and little pinpricks of blood speckling him. It wasn't particularly painful – he'd _long_ since passed the point where he acknowledged this level of pain. But it was annoying. Grimacing, Vegeta pulled off the sleeveless shirt and started picking bits of metal out of his skin with his fingernails, dropping them on the ground. If he got most of it out, the blood would dry and the wounds would start healing enough that she _probably_ wouldn't notice at supper… he'd wear a dark shirt just to be certain. He wasn't sure he could handle being _that_ close to her and she never missed a chance to fuss over his wounds.

Her ki was on the move, he noted. He was trying to keep tighter tabs on her positioning after that slip up the other morning. She was moving quicker than normal. He wondered what the emergency was. She was heading in this direction. Maybe going to her father? But she didn't stop at the office, she kept on coming towards the gravity room. He felt a growing sense of unease. Why was she coming _here_? Not _now,_ gods, not now…

The seal to the chamber hissed and opened, and there was _Bulma_ , holding a medical kit. Any doubt of her intentions fled when he saw that. _How the hell had she known?_ This was going to be _bad_.

He opened his mouth to protest, and she cut him off.

"I don't _think so_ , Mister Badman. You're getting that shrapnel picked out of your hide if it's the last thing I do!"

He took an inadvertent step backwards. He, Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans, took a _step backwards_. He twitched and resolutely stood his ground.

"Damnit, woman, I'm _fine_! I can pick this shit out myself, and then I'll heal, and everything will be _fine!_ " he snapped.

The feral smile she gave him told him that she wasn't going to back down. She advanced on him. He crossed his arms over his chest and curled his lips in a snarl, and then realized that was a dumb shit thing to do because it ground some shrapnel further into his skin.

"Cut it out, Vegeta. It's already going to be hard enough to find all those little pieces of metal!" she protested.

She wasn't going to give up; she _never_ gave up. He uncrossed his arms with an aggrieved sigh and refused to look at her. With practiced ease, she unzipped the med kit, and unsealed a packaged, sterilized pair of tweezers. He stood in silence, trying not to acknowledge her presence, while she found and pulled small pieces of metal out of him.

_*Plink, plink*_

Blood-stained bits of shrapnel fell into the little metal pan she'd brought and put on the floor beside him.

_*Plink, plink, plink*_

The pile of shrapnel grew as she worked. He suppressed a sigh. At least she wasn't _touching_ him. Just the tweezers were. But still, stray puffs of her scent were reaching his nose, and he was already riled up from before.

"Hold _still_ , damn you," she barked.

He huffed out a breath. "I'm _still_ , can you get this over with so I can go back to training?!"

"Yeah, the easier you make this for me, the quicker you can go back to beating yourself into submission," she snarked.

"Tch."

_*Plink, plink, plink*_

Ok, he thought he'd gotten _most_ of it before she'd randomly shown up here, but apparently not. He was slightly impressed at the growing collection of metal in the pan. Apparently, he'd only got the _big_ pieces.

A few more minutes of plinking, and then she knelt to get the antiseptic while he stood there, oozing blood in silence. She stood up and started daubing the many punctures with the antiseptic. He ignored the cool, stinging touch and hoped she wouldn't accidentally make direct skin contact. Disinfection done, she fished around for little adhesive patches and started sticking them all over. There were a _lot_ of little adhesive patches, enough that it would be annoying to pick them all off in the shower, later. The wrappers and backings went into the little pan with the shrapnel.

Finally, she was done, and he felt like he could breathe again. Only, not too much, because he could still smell her even through the antiseptic, and that was threatening to make his brain melt. Maybe he could now clean up the remains of the bot and get back to training.

"Vegeta…" her voice was soft, no edge to it, and he looked before he could stop himself. _Mistake_. She was looking at him through soft eyes, with none of the usual weaponized attitude that she so skillfully wielded.

' _What…?_ ' he thought, numbly, shaken. Her cheeks pinked suddenly, and before he could process it, she was pressing her lips to his and his thoughts shattered entirely.

* * *

Stupid, sexy Saiyan, getting his stupid, sexy body full of shrapnel. Of course, he protested, and of course, Bulma ignored the protests, and made him endure having the fragments picked out of his hide, dotted him with antiseptic, and tried to ignore the way he smelled. He smelled like he always did after a hard workout. The musk was going straight to her head.

And still, he wasn't looking at her. If she hadn't seen the graphs, she would have thought he was indifferent. But she'd seen the graphs, and Bulma suspected right now he was anything _but_ indifferent.

She, also, was not indifferent.

Bulma wasn't sure at what point it finally hit home, but it did. Despite everything, despite what he'd once been like, she realized she wanted him.

Chance comments he'd made in the past revealed to her that his life in Frieza's army was completely and utterly fucked up. He'd been a right terror when he'd first arrived, barely civilized and all naked aggression and the need to dominate others and prove himself the strongest. But since then, he'd come right around, largely thanks to her parents' subtle, gentle training. Oh, he was still fully capable of being an asshole when he wanted to, and grumpy was his default setting, but in the last few weeks she'd seen traces of kindness from him, concern, humour, and even respect.

And desire. The traces he let out with his behaviour told none of the story the graphs had. And she _was_ a scientist. She liked hard data.

Her heart was pounding, and all she was doing was patching him up the way she usually did. He was attempting to ignore her, enduring her tending of his wounds mostly in silence, with the exception of a few outbursts.

She wanted him. The intensity of it surprised her. Silently, she stuck the last of the adhesive patches on him. She took a step back, straightened up almost without consciousness of doing so, and steeled herself before she lost her guts for this and ran off.

"Vegeta…"

He looked at her then, and something about his expression looked stricken. By what, she didn't know. Her heart thumped, and she could feel her face warm. Before she could lose her nerve, she pushed herself forward, bringing her face up to his, and kissed him.

She had thought maybe it would just be a quick touch of lips on lips and then she'd go, but that's not how it worked out. The moment they touched, even _she_ could feel his ki surge, and the feeling of contact with his skin was electric. She wasn't sure whose arms went around whom, first, or if it happened simultaneously, but the next thing she knew she was clinging to Vegeta and his hands were on her back, and his mouth was hot on hers, kissing back hard.

His hair was so soft. And he seemed to get a little excited when she touched it. She had one hand on the back of his head, buried in his spiky locks, and the other creeping down to his firm, toned ass. Which she grabbed, of course. This caused his eyes to open in surprise and meet hers. She smiled and bit his bottom lip, then sucked it. He inhaled sharply, eyes burning. She got the sense from some of his reactions that this kind of thing was _new_ to Vegeta. Hmm… interesting. The way he'd kissed her that night, she never would have guessed. But he seemed surprised by these little things. He'd implied he wasn't a virgin, but somehow, she doubted he was _that_ experienced. Probably too busy focusing on training and getting stronger instead of girls.

Probably no one had ever touched him like this, what with his being a prince and all. Well, she was getting a grab of his royal heinie right now. And it was a lovely heinie at that.

Fingers curled around her own ass, grabbing tight enough to produce a 'mmmph' from Bulma as he pulled her hips hard against his own. She felt him smile, and then he bit her lip back. Then he pulled his head back, gasping, breathing hard. She remembered how his oxygenation had dropped last time and smirked – he hadn't yet learned how to breathe while kissing. Not that it was _easy_ , when the kissing was _that_ good.

"I don't know," he grated quietly, breath rapid, "how you do this to me."

She caressed the back of his head, leaned in, and nibbled on his neck. The grip on her ass tightened, grinding her into his hips. He groaned. Her initial assessment from the other night returned – he was _definitely_ packing heat. And apparently, he was _very_ happy to see her. He might be short compared to everyone in her circle except for Krillin and Chaiotzu, but he wasn't poorly endowed from what she could tell.

Besides, she liked that she didn't have to stretch to kiss him. Or nibble his neck. Or suck on his earlobe. That brought another strangled noise from him, and he stumbled backwards. She went with him, and then somehow they ended up on the ground with Bulma straddling his waist. He looked surprised. One of his hands was still on her ass, and the other grabbing her hip. She leaned forward and kissed him again, and his arms went around her, pulling her against his chest.

She kept one hand in his hair and used the other to explore his chest and torso. His skin was hot and smooth over rock-hard muscles, crisscrossed here and there with scars. One of them she knew, the one left behind where Frieza had delivered the killing blow back on Namek. He'd been resurrected with the scar.

With one hand adjusting her thigh, he rolled them onto their sides, and then pressed in on her, mouth going for her neck. She felt teeth and moaned at the jolt that ran through her. He pushed her into the floor, hands on her hips, practically on top of her. And then something stabbed her _sharp_ , in the left ass cheek, and she yelped out a loud "owwwww!"

He stiffened and pulled away, looking horrified. She realized he thought he'd hurt her. She winced and reached an exploratory hand down to her butt. Her fingers came away wet. Blood. She brought her hand up and he caught it, pulling slightly away from her. She saw him sniff and then examine her finger, and then he gave her a very direct look, the demand to know what happened clear in his black eyes.

"Shrapnel. In my butt," Bulma managed. He blinked.

"What?" he sounded incredulous. A few wordless moments passed. Then he grinned, wide and feral, eyes sparking with something that looked like nothing but trouble. "I guess we're going to have to apply some first aid," he said, sounding extremely pleased with himself. "Get up, woman!"

Oh shit. No fucking _way_! "I can do it myself," she protested, a little more desperately than she intended. He started laughing, his hand leaving her hip as he rolled back to sit.

"Oh no you don't, woman! You've made _me_ endure countless sessions trying to plug every little inconsequential scrape and cut. It's _my_ turn, now!" His face was filled with a familiar wild glee, She'd last seen it on Namek, in the middle of battle. He chuckled again, getting up and grabbing the medical kit as he did so, and then he reached down and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, you don't want any more of this stuff stuck in you for _me_ to pick out," he said, pulling her towards the door. Vegeta didn't let go of her wrist. She knew there was no way she could get her hand free if he didn't want her to – he could crush her without even thinking.

The grin never left him as he led her out of the gravity room and into the hangar. And then towards the bathroom in the hall. At least he'd considered privacy. Sure, no one but her dad came down here usually, but there were monitors. She didn't want to review the footage and see Vegeta pulling shrapnel out of her butt, later. "Alright, you know what to do," he said, closing the door. One corner of his mouth pulled a little higher, exposing a distinct canine and the peaks of his molars. It was a sudden, vivid reminder that he was really not human.

When Bulma didn't comply fast enough, that grin twitched higher. "Well? What are you waiting for? Strip!" he ordered. Bulma turned bright red.

"Alright, but _don't look_ ," she demanded, through grit teeth.

"Woman, I'm gonna _have_ to look, to get that piece of shrapnel out of your _heinie_ ," he smirked, emphasizing the euphemism for her ass in such a way as to make it _perfectly_ clear that he'd realized what the term _actually_ meant.

Ohhh Vegeta… he was so ridiculously oblivious sometimes that it was hilariously adorable, but every now and then he demonstrated conclusively that not much escaped his gaze. This Saiyan prince could be _smart_ , when he wanted to be. Feeling awkward, she undid her short shorts while Vegeta grinned, apparently having so much fun with the fact that the tables had turned that he refused to look away. 'I _got_ you,' his eyes screamed.

Carefully, she pulled down her shorts, feeling the piece of shrapnel tug on its way back through the fabric. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to get it out. Damnit. Then she turned around, facing her butt towards Vegeta, keeping a wary eye on him over her shoulder. He snorted, and then his eyes scanned her. She saw him home in on the spot where the shrapnel was. "Better take off your underthing," he suggested, voice cocky with glee.

Even though they had just had a heavy make-out session on the gravity room floor, and he still showed some significant evidence that all of that had an effect on him, he seemed to be getting off _way more_ on the opportunity to get a little just desserts out of her. If only she wasn't so _mortified_ , it might have been humorous. Bulma slipped down her panties, secretly glad they were just some plain old polka-dot bikini briefs rather than something racier like a thong or lace boyshorts.

He was chuckling under his breath when he knelt down behind her and pulled out a fresh pack of tweezers from the kit. "Bend over, you're in my light," he grated, matter-of-factly.

Bulma bent over, facing forward so he wouldn't see her blush. More chuckles later and then there was a tug and a bit of pain, and the feeling of air on her ass. She heard the sound of an ointment swab being opened – a familiar sound by now. Then a cool swipe, and a sting. The crackle of an adhesive strip being removed, and then a soft, gentle press of warm fingers on her bottom. He smoothed the bandage with a finger to seal the adhesive, and then grabbed her other ass cheek familiarly and made a 'snrk' noise of barely contained amusement.

Insufferable bastard. She was unaccountably aroused by all of this, and definitely not comfortable with the fact. She scrambled to get her panties back up and her shorts back on, still blushing furiously, while he leaned against the door with his eyes closed and this insane, idiot grin. She finished and he cocked open one eye at her. "We should get back to our quarters and clean up, it's getting close to dinner time, and I don't want your mother to not feed me," he said. Table manners were an imposition he would endure in return for getting _fed_. She was internally shocked and more than a little turned on at this new side of Vegeta. It's like something popped the cork and there went the stoic, and what was left behind was all power and self-assurance and raw sexual energy. And that feral grin. Apparently, all it took was some heavy petting on the floor of his training room, and some shrapnel in her ass.

He was grinning like that the whole awkward walk back to the hallway. He stopped, outside his door, and took her wrist. In one smooth moment, he was close against her, mouth near her ear. Her insides fluttered and she stifled a moan. " _Bulma_. I'm coming for you, tonight," he said. "Be ready!" And then he vanished, and she almost fell over.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes there's lemons. Enjoy.

She had had him feeling off balance and out of control since that night he'd caught her crying. Off balance, literally and figuratively, as he found that his strength evaporated when Bulma started doing those things to him. She'd been in his arms on the floor, and Vegeta was spiralling out of control fast with no clue on how to recover.

And then the woman made that sharp sound of pain and for one horrible moment he thought he must have lost control over his strength and hurt her. But it was something other than him. He could smell the tang of her blood overtop the growing scent of her arousal, when she pulled her hand forward. He couldn't stop himself from scenting her blood. He liked the smell of blood… but he'd prefer if she kept hers inside her skin. How had she managed to injure herself?

When she told him, it took a moment to process, and then he realized with sudden clarity that he had an opportunity to turn the tables on her for all those countless sessions spent trying to endure her fussing over his wounds.

_This_ was going to be _good_. For Vegeta, _revenge_ was always the sweetest dish.

At some point, while he was savouring the reversal of fortunes, he came to the conclusion that _this was just another kind of battle_. A battle he hadn't realized was a battle, which had allowed her to get under his skin and drive his control right from him. A battle, but not one which would end with blood and death, oh no. He definitely did not want _kill_ Bulma. She might be his _opponent_ , but she was also his _prize_.

After that, it was child's play to regain his centre and find his balance. Instead of struggling and failing to suppress the desire she invoked in him, he harnessed the energy it brought. By the time he'd finished the extremely satisfying act of applying first aid to her wound, enjoying every moment of her flustered and outraged, he knew what he was going to do.

After dinner… because there was no way he would _miss dinner_. After dinner… he would _conquer_ her.

The high sustained him the whole way through the incident and back to his quarters. Before going to shower, he delivered his promise for the continuation of their battle later that night, enjoying the sharp peak of her scent and the flush in her face when he did so.

He did _not_ take a cold shower. Now that he knew this was just another kind of combat, he didn't need to. He could control his body, use its reactions as power. Under the hot water, Vegeta made no attempts to suppress or dispel his raging hardon, instead, he took control of that surging nuclear furnace that had burned in his belly since Bulma kissed him, and banked it, shifting it into a form that could be sustained for hours. This was just another endurance exercise. He would _not_ release his control until he had her _screaming his name_.

There was a slight problem – pants and boxers were definitely less comfortable than usual, and the state of his excitement was… obvious. He could ignore the discomfort, but he somehow doubted that Panchy would include _this_ in the realm of good table manners, and he wanted to avoid exile from the dinner table _at all costs_. So, he found the longest shirt in his closet, which happened to that pink 'Badman' shirt Bulma had given him, and left it buttoned but untucked. It covered his crotch, but he had no doubt _Bulma_ would know what was underneath the tails of the shirt and why he chose it. She was smart. He counted on it.

Because in no way did he want her thinking she might even _remotely_ be off the hook.

He arrived in the dining room with a smirk and an air of ruthless self-assurance. Bulma was at the table already, wearing different short pants, but the same tight, collared button-up shirt from before. She hadn't showered, just brushed her hair and neatened up a little. That was fine. She would still be smelling good later. He noted the track of her eyes on him and then her slight flush, and couldn't keep the traces of a grin from his lips.

He took his seat, greeting Panchy. He went on to perform his parts of the dinner time ritual with uncommon good cheer. The food was good – it always was. This time, it was some kind of roast ruminant with mashed starchy tubers, piles of steamed, buttered vegetables, a delicious savoury sauce, and some kind of puffy egg bread thing. The meat Panchy brought Vegeta was mostly rare, which was how he preferred it. He ate with relish, enjoying every bite. Every now and then, his gaze would catch Bulma, and she'd blush just a little and focus on her plate. More fuel for his inner fire, savoured as much as the meal.

"You seem in a very good mood tonight, Vegeta, did you have a good day?" Panchy asked him. Well, he couldn't quite keep the grin from creeping onto his face, and she'd noticed. Apparently, she hadn't put together _why_. His grin got wider.

"Yeah, I had a pretty good day, Panchy," he affirmed, with a _bright_ smile. Which he turned on her daughter, the smile morphing into a predatory grin. Bulma blushed.

"Are you enjoying the dinner?" Panchy asked.

"Absolutely," he said.

"Make sure you leave some room for dessert," the clueless woman smiled at him.

"Oh, I will," he promised, making sure to pin Bulma with his gaze as he answered. His mouth twitched a little wider. If it wouldn't have spoiled the game, he would have laughed at her reaction. She turned bright red and shifted in her seat, and was suddenly _very_ interested in the little round green cabbage things on her plate.

Oh, he was having _fun_ with this! Not _nearly_ as much fun as he was going to have _after_ supper.

Dessert was something Panchy called cheesecake, with some kind of fruit sauce. It was delicious. He made sure to thank Panchy whenever she kept the food coming. She mistook his demeanour for some kind of friendliness, of course. The truth was, he hadn't felt this _good_ about things since he'd been resurrected.

The battleground was a little different than usual, the stakes were completely new, but yeah, he was totally enjoying himself. Instead of violent outbursts of ki and strength intended to annihilate his opponent, his attacks were far more subtle – deliberately reinforcing his earlier promise with every move, glance, and smirk. He relished Bulma's reactions, proof that his efforts were hitting the target.

The whole family lingered at the table over tea, and Vegeta thought that perhaps Bulma was trying to delay the inevitable somehow. The thought amused him, and sent a pulse of anticipation through him. He deliberately took his time with tea, making sure she observed the fact that he was perfectly willing to let her drag things out. _Delay all you want, Bulma,_ he thought. _Tonight, you're mine_.

Finally, it seemed she capitulated and excused herself. He remained seated, smiling into his cup of now-cold tea. He caught the tang of her nervousness and arousal as she passed by him, heading for the hallway that led to their quarters.

Vegeta waited a few minutes, tracking her ki. She was heading to her quarters. Then he gave Panchy a pleasant and polite thank you and excused himself.

"Have a good night, Vegeta, dear," Panchy said, cheerfully.

"Thank you, Panchy, I will," he said, evenly, with a smile. "Have a good night, as well."

He sauntered down that long, carpeted hallway with a grin, letting those banked flames uncurl inside him.

The door to Bulma's quarters was unlocked, of course. She never locked the first door – it just went to her little workshop, where he'd been a number of times, after bot maintenance or other technological requests. The one beyond that, he'd never tried. She wasn't in the workshop. Her ki was deeper inside. Completely silent, he opened the door.

There were no lights on, only moonlight through the open window, framed by a set of pale, gauzy curtains billowing in a breeze. She was in the window, in the same clothes she'd worn at dinner. Her hands were on the casement, and she was looking out at the gibbous moon.

As he approached, she must have sensed him, or maybe he made more noise than he thought, despite attempting to move quietly across the plush carpet. For she turned, and stood to face him, no sign of fear in her anywhere, not her posture, her scent, or those blue, blue eyes, bluer than any sky, midnight purple in the dark of her room. Determination, yes. Nervousness, yes. Arousal, _oh yes_. But no _fear_. In all the time since arriving back from Namek, she had been fearless towards him.

Despite the inferno inside, he was very gentle when he took her in his arms, mouth falling on hers tenderly. He savoured the rapid flutter of her heart, the rising heat in her skin and the feel of her body against his as he kissed her, slowly. Her arms snaked around his back. His hands were on the small of her back, infinitely gentle.

Eventually, he broke the kiss, mouth going near her ear. "You didn't run," he said, pleased. Then he let some of what was inside him out, and smugly purred, " _good girl_." She shuddered at his words. And then he bit her on the neck, more than hard enough to leave a mark. That was the point. All the world would know she was his. She gave a sharp gasp and seemed to go boneless in his arms at the feel of his teeth on her.

His next kiss wasn't nearly so gentle. He ravaged her mouth, aggressive and insistent. His hands traced her slender form, down her back and over the curve of her buttocks, slipping his fingers under the hem of her ridiculously short shorts to curl into the flesh of her pert little ass. She was so soft, compared to him. He was all hardened muscle and sinew, forged in gravities that would turn her into paste. Bulma was the opposite – curved where he was angled, soft where he was hard. Her body against his felt so very good.

As roughly as he kissed her, she kissed him back, just as hard, and her hands were roving him just as adventurously. That fearlessness she'd had from nearly the start, even when she _should_ by all rights be terrified of him, was thrilling. The spirit of this woman, her refusal to back down from his challenge, just fired him further.

These clothes had to go, he decided. The quicker, the better. His hands roved to her front, sliding up her slender waist and over her breasts, up to her soft neck. He touched her softly, feeling the heat on her skin where he'd bitten her and the racing of her pulse. And then he took hold of her collar and ripped her shirt open, sending buttons pinging off in all directions.

"Hey, _Vegeta!_ " she barked in protest, jerking back from him, and he smirked in the darkness. "Damnit, you _jerk_ , that was a _nice shirt_!" Her outrage brought a full-on grin.

"Then you'd better take off the rest of this crap, or I'll do it again," he promised, with a tone of amused challenge.

"Only if you do the same!" she demanded. He was fine with that request. He undid the top buttons of his shirt and pulled it over his head, while she peeled off the remains of hers. His undershirt came off while her bra hit the floor. Those too-short shorts of hers slid off her hips while he removed his pants. Boxers and panties joined the rest of the scattered clothing on the floor.

Gods, she was beautiful. Traced in moonlight and completely naked, she was the finest thing he had ever laid eyes on. But he didn't just want to _look_. Oh, not by a long shot. In a flash, he moved them both to her bed. The speed and suddenness of it pulled a little yelp out of her, and he smiled. And then he couldn't hold himself back from touching her, exploring all of this small, soft, entrancing creature with his mouth and hands, feeling her hands and mouth on him, the intoxicating feel of skin against naked skin. In the dark, he did his level best to discover all of Bulma, every curve and valley, every inch of her soft, pale skin.

She was breathing hard and making small noises of desire, and her scent was enough to make him dizzy. Her slender, delicate hands traced his form, finding unexpectedly sensitive places. He'd never been touched like this before, and he liked it. He'd never touched anyone else like _this_ before, and he _loved_ it. Her skin was cooler than his, softer than his, and she tasted sweet and salty under his lips. Under his touch, her nipples contracted into hard nubs, and her breathing quickened and became ragged when he put his mouth over one breast and tongued the little firm nub. She threaded one hand through his hair, and where she touched, his scalp tingled and burned deliciously. Her other hand roved over his back and side, down to his hipbone, and he felt the tracing of her nails over his flesh. Where she touched seemed to light up, tingling and sensitized.

One of his hands slipped between her legs, and she was so hot and wet that it almost staggered him to realize the effect he was having on her. She moaned when he touched her, slipping a finger inside. And then her hand found his cock and the feel of those slender digits on him made him dizzy. He wasn't going to wait any longer. He settled his legs between hers and was thrilled when she shifted her hips and pressed herself up against him. Hand still on her, he guided himself in, and her moan at his entry was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

He had to take a moment to be still and process the flood of sensations assaulting him, her scent all over him and the feeling of her hot sex tight around him. And then he started moving, and she moved with him, rising to meet every thrust. He gave into the insistent pull of the fire inside and took her hard and fast, until her breaths turned into gasps, and then high cries of pleasure, and she came, her legs wrapped around him and her fingernails in her back. He gave her a moment to recover and himself a moment to regain control, and then kissed her hard and ground himself into her.

She moaned into his lips, and he grabbed her thighs, raising her legs, finding he could dive deeper into her. He let her adjust, pacing himself. He felt like his whole being was on fire, but there was no way he'd lose control yet. Not until she was screaming his name.

He kept going, using her moans and cries to gauge how he should move. He kept a tight grip on himself, intent on her. He'd never fucked like this before – always before it had been a quick release and that was that. But he didn't just want to bang and go, no. He wanted much, much more.

He wanted to _conquer_ her, to take her so completely that she would never even _think_ of anyone but him, ever again. To make her _his_ , utterly.

So he focused all of his being on the woman underneath him, attendant to every moan and shift of her body. It didn't hurt that when she came, the feel of her against his body was amazing. And he kept her coming, her shrieks like music to his soul. Relentlessly, he plundered her, driving her on and on, feeling his skin burn and core ache with his own rising need.

And then, Bulma came once more, her voice rising to a scream, both hands tangled in his hair. "Vegeta, Vegeta, Vegeta," she chanted his name as orgasm took her yet again.

And just as he had promised himself, Vegeta allowed the fire inside to take him, and felt his ki thunder through his body in answer, enveloping them both in a torrent of power, and he came, hard, moaning her name in a ragged voice, as she kept going, pulsing around him. Light flashed before his eyes and his mind imploded. When he returned to his senses, he was collapsed against her, panting. The room was somehow still intact, by some miracle. Her ki was still there, unharmed, a tiny little candle flame nestled against his inferno.

"Oh God, Vegeta," Bulma gasped. She sounded slightly dazed. Well, she _should_ be.

He gathered his wits and his energy and felt himself stir again. There was _no way_ he was going to let himself be done so _soon_. "I'm not done with you yet, woman," he grated out, in challenge.

"Oh, dear God," she moaned. He smiled. It was going to be a good night.


	13. Chapter 13

Bulma came to just before 6 in the morning, a few minutes before she normally rose, and immediately regretted it. It felt like she'd been hit by a truck. A sexy truck. Named Vegeta. Holy crap, what a night. Who would have ever guessed that Vegeta was such a wild animal in the sack? Ok, maybe the intensity wasn't a surprise, given how he threw himself into anything he chose to pursue. And Saiyan endurance and stamina were definitely not a surprise, even in the bedroom. But she hadn't expected him to be _that_ good. He had kept going for _hours_. She wasn't sure when she had passed out, but clearly at some point she _had_.

She stifled a groan and attempted to move a few limbs, just to make sure they were still there. It didn't work out so well, and for a moment she was afraid that she'd ended up paralyzed or something. But then she realized it was only half of her body, and that half had something heavy, warm, and rather immobile pinning it down. Oh, right, Vegeta. She was rather glad he hadn't left in the night.

Well, at least she wasn't paralyzed. The parts of her that weren't pinned under the Saiyan seemed fine… if a little sore. Ok, a lot sore. The last time she'd had sex was before Yamcha died, and the first time in over a year was her getting Vegeta'd. Damn, she needed a _week_ of sleep, or something. She was probably going to have to miss breakfast. Oh god, she couldn't face her mother. There was a solution to this problem.

Dim sum.

That was it. She reached towards the night table and grabbed her phone, disabling the alarm that was about to go off and punching out a quick messages to her mom. 'I think I'm going to introduce Vegeta to dim sum, don't worry about breakfast,' she wrote. A few seconds later her phone bwooped.

'Have fun, honey, eat some shumai in my name. Did you two even get any sleep last night?' Of course, her mother was up already and no doubt perky as fuck. Bulma winced. So much for not letting her mother know. The family's household was well soundproofed, but the window had been open all night.

'Need more,' she typed back. 'Good night.' She quickly found her favourite dim sum place on the internet and sent in a table request a table for two for sometime around noon and made sure to leave a note to prepare a shit-ton of food so the kitchen wouldn't be caught with their pants down. Then she put the phone back on the nightstand and went back to sleep.

When she next cracked a tentative eye, the room was bright with sunlight, and the heat of the day was already starting to seep in. Vegeta was still sprawled half across her, off in dreamland. He looked shockingly peaceful; his sharp features almost beautiful in sleep. For a moment she wondered if he was dead somehow, but then she realized that he was still pretty warm, and she could feel his heartbeat and breathing. He was _very_ warm. The sight of him and feel of him made her heart beat a little harder. Wasn't last night enough? It seemed not.

His fingers on her breast twitched suddenly, and then the leg pinning her legs down shifted. Eyes opened, and in the morning light and at this distance, she could see they weren't true black at all, but rather, his irises were a rich, dark charcoal. They focused on her briefly, and then he closed his eyes and snuggled closer, hand sliding down her ribs to wrap around her, leg pinning her more deliberately. "Mine," he murmured.

 _Well, I'll be damned_ , thought Bulma. _Seems he's the cuddling type after all_.

Then he bolted upright with a look of panic. "We missed breakfast!" he barked. Bulma couldn't help herself, she just started laughing. He gaped at her. "It's not funny, woman! The food will be cold!"

The look on his face was priceless, but she had better tell him. She stopped laughing long enough to choke out, "dim sum, I'm taking you to dim sum, don't worry Vegeta, you'll get fed. It'll be hot food, I promise."

"What the fuck is dim sum?" he demanded. He looked so goddamn _concerned_.

"Food, lots of it, really good," Bulma supplied. He took a moment to process it.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Shouldn't we go eat it?" he said, moving to get up. Her hand slid over _his_ wrist this time, and he paused, staring at it. She was about as strong as a bug, next to him, but he made no move to pull away. God, he was hotness incarnate. Her body protested, but damn, her spirit had some other ideas.

"I made the reservation for noon. It's 10. We have time," she purred, pulling him back down into bed with her. A flash of realization crossed his face, and then a self-satisfied grin.

"Oh, what, last night wasn't enough, huh?" he smirked.

"It probably was, but I don't really care right now," she murmured.

To tell the truth, last night was probably _more_ than enough. Vegeta hadn't quit until _very_ late, and while he'd obviously held back his strength so as not to completely _break_ her, he hadn't exactly been soft and tender about any of it. But what she felt was not entirely rational, or wise. She'd recover later. She twined her herself to him, enjoying the feel of his body against hers. Seems he was already interested.

"Happy to see me, my prince?" she asked, teasingly. His eyes burned at her words, and he made a deep, rumbling noise. She kissed him, pushing him gently but insistently onto his back. He let her. At least this morning, he seemed content to let her lead the way, instead of pile driving her. God, last night had been mind-blowing. She wasn't up for any more of what happened _last night_ , not right now. But she was up for _something_. She was running hot enough to take him on, even sore as she was this morning. As long as she could take control of the situation, that was.

Bulma slid her body over his, straddling him. She sat up, grinding herself against his cock. He looked up at her, like he was curious about what she was going to do. There was hunger in his eyes and his hands were on her thighs, but he seemed to be waiting for her to make a move, despite the raging hard on. Even with her miniscule ki and her nonexistent senses, she could feel the restrained power in him.

In the light of day, underneath her, he was a magnificent sight. She'd never been shy about the fact that she liked muscles. Vegeta was ripped – he'd been a hardbody when he first arrived, and all that gravity room training had just made things better. God, he was hot. God, she wanted him _bad_. So, she moved, gently, guiding him into herself, glad her own arousal stemmed the soreness. His grip on her thighs tightened fractionally, and he seemed to be entranced by the sight of her.

He felt so good in her, hot and hard. She was so turned on. She closed her eyes and moaned, leaned forward and rode him, giving in to her desire. She was uninhibited and unrestrained, and focused on enjoying him, and enjoy him she did. She could feel his hands on her, and his chest under her own palms. His breath was ragged. When she started to come, moaning his name, he gasped something in some alien tongue, grabbed her waist, and raised his hips to meet her. She felt him release with a shudder, feeling the torrent of his ki enveloping her.

Still panting, Bulma opened her eyes to see Vegeta, flushed and looking slightly stunned. He looked good like that. She leaned in and kissed him, feeling like she was melting right into him when his arms came around her. He was right around her height, which made it at lot easier for her to kiss him without letting him go.

She felt him start to rise again, and broke off the kiss, giving him an incredulous look. "What, _already_?" she demanded. Adding today's data to last night… well, the Saiyan refractory period seemed to be about a minute, give or take. She wondered how Chi Chi survived. Oh right, probably because Goku was pretty single-minded about training and seemed pretty fucking oblivious about everything else.

"Got a problem with it?" Vegeta grinned, challenge in his voice.

She could feel her face heating up, because she really _didn't_ have a problem with it, but his attitude… oh God, this man was an asshole. A sexy asshole. God damnit, she wanted him even more. Stupid, sexy Saiyan. Forget Chi Chi… how the hell was _she_ going to survive it? Especially since it seemed she _just couldn't stop_. She met his eyes and smirked her own challenge back at him. "Fucking _take_ me already, Vegeta!"

The look on his face could best be described as predatory glee. He rolled them over in one smooth motion and pushed himself up so that he could look down at her. "Don't mind if I do," he purred, and then dipped his head and bit her on the neck. The sudden pressure on nerve points triggered her to go momentarily limp. Tingles shot through her, travelling straight to her crotch. She moaned. At the sound of her, he jerked his hips, and she gasped. "Mine," he grated into her ear.

He was rough, aggressive, and utterly hot, and Bulma wrapped her legs around his and did her best to try to keep up, meeting his thrusts with her own. She held nothing back, not her voice or her body. When she came, it was with his name on her lips, and the flood of his ki through her body as he matched her, moaning out her name. When his eyes opened again, he was giving her a smirk of triumph. Oh God, did this crazy asshole treat sex as if it was a _battle_?

One minute later, he was ready to go again. Eventually, she just simply wasn't physically able to continue and told him so. He looked ridiculously pleased with himself at the news. She glanced at the clock, and suggested they shower and get ready to go get some food.

Bulma headed for the shower and Vegeta followed her. When she flashed him a look, he gave her a challenging smirk back. Ok, it seemed she wasn't going to be showering _alone_ , today. Seems she had one more in her this morning, after all. Shower sex was awkward at the best of time and impossible at the worst, but somehow Vegeta made it work. Superhuman strength and control likely played a part. After that, though, she really did have to insist that she was done. He just grinned that fucking smug grin again.

In the bathroom, toweling off, she caught sight of her neck in the mirror. Damn, that was some bruise, and on both sides, too. That looked way too deliberate – she could see every tooth. She touched the marks. They felt warm and slightly raised. At least he hadn't broken skin. It was going to take a _lot_ of concealer to hide that. Or a really good scarf. Fortunately, she had a number of those that she normally wore. She fingered the bruise and sighed.

"The pap are going to be all over this," she murmured.

"What?" Vegeta asked, noticing her examining the marks he'd left in the mirror. He gave his hair one last scrub dry and tossed his towel on the floor. Good God, that body was a sin. He looked every bit as good completely naked as she had imagined. Zero shame or embarrassment either.

"Paparazzi," she said. "They take pictures of celebrities and rich people and gossip about their lives. Since I'm the daughter of one of the world's richest scientist inventors and the heiress to Capsule Corp, whenever I go out there's always cameras. This'll be all over the gossip blogs in minutes the moment we step out in public."

"So, you mean to tell me that the whole world is gonna know about this?" he asked.

She gave a long-suffering sigh. "Yes, most likely."

Vegeta's face cracked into that crazy grin again. " _Excellent!_ "

She sighed and started brushing her teeth. When she was done, Vegeta reached for her toothbrush. "Ew, no, use your own!" she protested.

"What? With all the times I had my tongue in your mouth in the last 24 hours, do you think it really _matters_?" he demanded.

Flushing, she yanked back her toothbrush. "Don't share toothbrushes, it's gross!"

"Woman, I've shared a whole lot more than _toothbrushes_ with you already," he said, but then he vanished, and in a moment was back with his own.

When she started doing her hair and makeup, he got bored and complained about the time it took. "Stuff it," she replied. "If I go out looking anything less than flawless, any imperfection had better be stylish and deliberately there. Otherwise it's all over the gossip rags."

"Well, how long is this going to take? I'm hungry!"

"Give me 10, I'm quicker than most women, and be glad of it," she said, not breaking stride in her routine. He disappeared, probably to go get dressed. She finished her makeup and hair, picked something hot and tight from her giant closet and a scarf and some bangles to tie it all together, and then she was ready. He was waiting in her lab, leaning against the door, looking hot as fuck in good linen dress pants and a dark blue silk Armani. He'd had the sense to pick something nice from his closet, at least.

Although, perhaps it was a shame that the pink Badman shirt wasn't clean.

Oh well, there was always next time.

"I'm flying us, you don't know where to go, and we're trying to keep the public from realizing that you're an alien," she said, twirling a capsule case on the end of her finger. They started walking to the elevator.

"Why?" he said.

"Because most people still don't realize that all of this is going on, and we'd like to prevent the world from panicking."

"Tch," he sneered. "They're going to realize something's up if the androids go around killing everyone."

"And if you and Goku end up not dying and killing the androids, then they don't need to know."

"I don't care about Kakarot, but I don't intend to die to a bunch of walking spare parts. I _will_ achieve the legend and become the strongest."

"You do that," she said, as they arrived in the open space of the courtyard.

"Do you _doubt_ me, woman?" he challenged.

"Nope," she said, lightly. "I think you'll make a pretty hot blond, actually."

"Woman, I make a hot _everything_ ," he smirked. Back to 'woman' again, it seemed. She knew he knew her name. She'd heard him moaning it when he came. Whatever was going on between them, he was no longer going all frozen-faced and stiff when she hit him with something suggestive. It seemed he was greeting it as a challenge, now, and firing back. Hot.

"Yup," she agreed, cheerfully, and activated the capsule. A small two-seat helicopter emerged. "Let's go, hot stuff. Dim sum awaits us."


	14. Chapter 14

_Maybe being stuck on this backwards, boring shithole of a planet isn't that bad, after all,_ Vegeta reflected as Bulma skillfully piloted the small craft into the city. _Maybe things aren't so boring here at all_. She was weak as a kitten, but _oh_ , such an interesting challenge. He had realized last night that he wasn't content to let this be some kind of come-and-go. He'd never focused on another person's pleasure before. He'd never gone beyond his own orgasm before. He'd never spent a night with anyone in his life. He'd never let a woman take _him_. He'd let her because she did weird things to his insides and he liked it.

And in no way did he want this to _stop_.

She landed the small craft on the street and they stepped out. She recovered the capsule and then they turned to the restaurant. The building was pleasant, with pagoda-style architectural features, and big, round doors. Bulma led him through. There were people waiting inside the ornately decorated entry room. "Reservation for two, under Bulma Briefs," she said to the attendant.

"Right this way, Dr. Briefs," was the reply. She wasn't kidding, people really did know who she was. Bulma and Vegeta were led through a number of rooms, until they got to a relatively smaller room with folding panel doors. They sat at the indicated table, and Bulma requested some tea. The man bowed and left.

"Now we wait, and they'll come around with trolleys full of food," she said, giving him a soft, warm smile. "Dim sum is known for its steamer and fried dishes, especially. I've ordered plenty of everything."

The tea came – something made from some kind of flower. It was good. Then the food started to arrive. Excellent. Vegeta was hungry enough to eat the whole room. Dish after dish piled onto the table, and Bulma started pulling choice bits onto her plate, handling her chopsticks deftly. He'd learned how to use them well enough to eat at a decent rate. Before coming to this planet, he'd eaten with his hands, like a civilized Saiyan. This planet had way too many mysterious rules and hoops he had to jump through to get fed. He did remember to be appropriately expressive in his thanks as the dishes piled up on the table, and as the serving people whisked them away when he emptied them.

The food was good, though, and the servers kept it coming. Vegeta ate dish after dish, noting in passing the names that Bulma called the foods. Rice rolls, shumai, haam seui gok, ha gao, xiao long bao, dumplings of all sorts, rice with fillings in lotus leaves, seven different kind of bao, it just got better and better. He ate organ meats steamed in fermented bean sauce, the first time he'd had innards since the last time he'd devastated a planet. Steamed chicken feet in a red sauce. Tendon and ribs. Even sweet, warm egg tarts, hot from the oven.

Partway through the meal, Bulma's communicator dinged. She flipped through it, and then showed it to him. "See, I told you so," she said, when he took the device and saw a picture of the two of them, at this table, steamer dishes everywhere. "All over the internet in less than 30 minutes."

"What do the words say?" he asked, noticing the text.

"That's a friend of mine from high school, Helen. We still keep in touch. She's asking me who the hottie is," Bulma replied.

"What'd you say?"

"I said 'his name's Vegeta.' There's all kinds of speculation on the internet right now about who you are and why you're having dim sum with me."

"Do they know it's because of what I did to you last night?" he smirked.

"Oh, they're _speculating_ ," she grinned back at him, slyly. "Still hungry? I can ask the kitchen for more."

He wanted more of _something_ , but he'd settle for food. She'd already complained that she couldn't take any more of him today. He wondered if she would still feel that way after supper tonight. "Sure."

She ordered more, to the astonished trolley handler's shock. But the petite woman obediently returned with more dishes of steamer food, fried food, and rice. He ate it all, much to the amazement of the people in the restaurant. Afterwards, Bulma rose, and he quirked a brow at her.

"I need to pay them," she said. Oh. He wasn't sure how it worked on this planet. She handled it, and then they thanked the proprietor, who had come out personally to observe them, probably because of how much he could eat, but maybe because she was famous or something. Bulma and the proprietor bowed to each other, and Vegeta did the same. The old man gave him a long, slightly awed gaze.

Bulma led the way out of the restaurant, while Vegeta followed, hands in his pockets. He was aware that there were eyes on them, eyes on _him_ in particular. He saw people surreptitiously watching them, their communicators in hand. He knew those things could take images.

Bulma pulled out the flying machine capsule and activated it. Before she could move to climb into it, Vegeta struck, pressing her up against the side of the flying machine, hands around her, kissing her hard. At first, she seemed surprised, but then she melted into it. Vegeta could hear the clicks of communicators taking images. Kissing her was too good, and he didn't want to stop, but they needed to get back to the compound so he could go train. So, he released her, enjoying the fact that she seemed breathless, flushed, and a little mussed. He opened the door to the flying machine and let her precede him, managing to keep the mischief out of his eyes until her communicator started dinging madly on the flight back to the compound.

Every time that thing went off, his grin cracked a little wider.

* * *

Bulma sighed as her phone dinged yet again on the desk. It was impossible to get any work done on this armour right now. Her phone was blowing up. It had been like this _all afternoon_. She should probably turn it off, but then what if someone _important_ called her?

That fucking _troll_. God, Vegeta could be so bloody oblivious sometimes, and make some exceedingly poor decisions in battle just to prove himself stronger, but every now and then he demonstrated conclusively that there was a brain in that pretty head of his. And that brain seemed to be tuned for maximum mayhem. That kiss had been straight up _tactical_. Not much escaped him, that was for sure, even if it might have seemed like it did at first.

That canny asshole had managed to _use the paparazzi_ to stake some sort of public claim on her.

Somehow, she doubted that Vegeta intended last night to be a _one-time thing_ , not after a stunt like he'd pulled after dim sum. She was honestly fine with that. Sure, he'd been an enemy once… but so had plenty of their friends when they first met. Tien and Chaiotzu, Yamcha, Puer, Piccolo… some of their best and most beloved companions had all started out as enemies. Vegeta seemed to be slowly but surely making the transformation.

He was probably always going to be an asshole, and he was almost certain to always do dumb shit things just to get a chance to prove himself the strongest. He'd probably end up dead again, sooner or later, and there might not be any dragon balls that could bring him back. Bulma was under absolutely no illusions on any of those counts. But it seemed there was something in Vegeta all the same, that might actually be close to friend material. He'd demonstrated that there was a lot more going on inside than he let on, showing hints of at least some kind of inner emotional range besides rage and battle frenzy. She knew it was unlikely he'd ever verbalize it, and in fact he'd no doubt scoff at the very thought, but she knew it was _there_ , all the same. It just needed time.

She hoped he wouldn't die to the androids. Bulma wanted to see what Vegeta could become, given a chance. She hoped _she_ wouldn't die to the androids. She wanted to be there to see it!

Her phone dinged again, and she finally decided to look at it. She'd been ignoring it since the flight back.

There were _dozens_ of messages. Pretty much anyone who had her number and an internet connection was texting her. Most of the messages were female friends and acquaintances sending some variation of 'who is _that_ hottie?' and 'how long has _that_ been going on?' and 'why wasn't _I_ the first to know about this?' She decided silence was the best option with those, or she'd be forced to answer all kinds of awkward questions, like where she dug _Vegeta_ up from, and the world wasn't quite ready for the Saiyan prince to come out of the alien closet.

She scrolled through the texts and was momentarily exasperated when she found one from Yamcha, stating ' _really_ , B? REALLY?!' Like _he_ had a say in it. They'd broken it off and he'd moved on _immediately_. If not _before_. Dirtbag.

And then she got to her mother's text. 'I want grandbabies!' Panchy had written. Bulma thumped her head against the desk and was silently thankful that she hadn't stopped the pill when she and Yamcha had broken up. She was _not_ ready for motherhood. Especially not after _just one night_.

She was still scanning through texts (and snapshots of her getting kissed by Vegeta) when the door pushed open to reveal the man himself. Before she could react, he grabbed her phone and started looking at the screen. She saw his mouth twitch into a smirk when he'd caught all the photos of them kissing.

"I really wish I could read this damn shit," he said, sounding smug.

"I gave you a program for that," she said, reaching for her phone. He raised it out of her grasp, still smirking. There was a devilish gleam in his eyes as he kept her from her phone.

"Is there nothing better than that kid crap? It's insulting."

She snorted. "It's what there is. What's the matter, getting tired of 'd' is for 'dick', please find the 'd'?" she teased.

"Woman, I'll give you all the 'd' you can handle," he said, getting that grin again. The one he saved for the battlefield, and apparently, sex.

She rolled her eyes at him, and then jumped for the phone. "Hey, give that back," she protested. He began levitating just out of reach.

"I'll give it back if you say you'll teach me to read that stupid script," he demanded.

She stopped grabbing for it. "Yeah, ok," she agreed. He returned to the ground and handed her back her phone. "Did you break all your bots already or something?" she asked, once he'd given it back to her.

He made a face. "It's almost dinner time. I'm gonna shower." Well, yeah. She could smell him quite well, that familiar combination of sweat and Vegeta. It was kind of hot, but no doubt her mother would have words if he came to the table like that.

"Then go shower," she said. He gave her another one of those predatory grins. "Oh, come on, I have to get _some_ work done," she protested. The grin widened. Then her phone started ringing with a familiar tone – Blister in the Sun. "I have to get this, go shower."

"Tch, whatever, woman. I'll get you later," he promised, and exited, presumably to his own room.

She answered the phone, "Hey Krillin, what's up, is everything ok?"

"I was going to ask _you_ that," came the voice on the other end. "Bulma, are you ok?"

Oh gods. "Yes, Krillin, I'm fine," she sighed.

"Are you sure? Because if you need us to come over and kill him, I don't think any of us _can_. Goku refused, and Piccolo just laughed at us."

"Yes, Krillin, I'm fine," she repeated, exasperated. At least Goku, who was usually an idiot, wasn't getting involved. Piccolo didn't surprise her, he was smart. "It's consensual."

"It's _all over the news_. Well, the gossip columns. Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm absolutely alright, Krillin. Just _sore_ , ok?" she snapped.

"Oh God, I didn't need to hear that."

She growled at her phone.

"But seriously, we're going to swing by tomorrow afternoon to make sure you're still alive, ok?" Krillin said.

"Whatever," she said. "See you later, Krillin. Oh, could you bring some senzu beans?"

"Uhhh…. Yeah, I can see if I can bring some senzu beans. Are you really _sure_ you're ok?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, uh, ok, then. See you tomorrow, Bulma. Oh, can you ask your mother if she can make those little cakes again?"

"Petits-fours? Yeah, I'll ask her. Bye, Krillin."

"Bye, Bulma." They disconnected.

She really hoped he came through with those senzu beans. Maybe she could make some kind of tincture or concoction… they would bring a person back from nearly dead and heal all wounds; _surely_ she could make something that could be stretched out over many doses and help with the day-after-Vegeta. Sitting was still a little uncomfortable. And he'd made it clear that _he_ wanted more, and to be frank, Bulma was only too willing. It was her flesh that was weak.

Stupid, sexy Saiyan.

She texted her mother. 'Krillin's coming by tomorrow afternoon, with an unknown number of my other friends, is there any way we can have petits-fours?'

'Oh, how nice, I will be delighted to make them!' her mother texted back, almost immediately.

Bulma smiled at that. Her friends, even the ones who weren't Saiyans, could pack away a truly astounding amount of food in a very short time. Panchy loved cooking, especially making anything sweet. Nobody's waistline (except for maybe Vegeta) could afford dessert _everyday_ , so Panchy only made dessert on rare occasions. But when she had a chance to put on an afternoon tea spread, she never gave it up.

Well, she'd done nothing strenuous today other than eat and think a lot, so she didn't need the shower. She went to the bathroom and tidied her hair and made sure the concealer was still doing alright, and retied the scarf. Then she headed down to dinner.

The smell of charcoal reached her before she reached the dining room. She inhaled deeply. Her mother was pouring daiquiris out of a blender, and her father was not at his usual spot. Instead, he was out on the balcony, grilling. It smelled so good.

"Steaks?" she asked, sliding into her chair.

"Steaks, baked potato with all the fixings, Caesar salad, and oysters," her mother replied. Panchy's customary smile widened even more when she mentioned 'oysters'. Bulma sighed.

"I hope Dad's making lots," Bulma commented, forgoing to mention the oysters.

"He is. I made sure to sous vide enough to keep Vegeta happy, and it's really just a quick sear to get those grill lines!"

"Rare, I hope," Bulma commented.

"Of course!" Panchy was more cheerful and bubbly than normal. When Vegeta arrived, her smile widened. "Good evening, Vegeta, dear! I hope you're feeling well. We're having steak and oysters tonight, make sure to eat lots!" she sang, cheerfully.

Vegeta paused, looking like he realized something what up with her mother but was very unsure of what. He quirked a brow at Bulma. She averted her gaze and hoped her face wasn't as red as it felt. He sat down, looking somewhat confused.

"I smell fire and burning meat," he said. "Where is Dr. Briefs?"

"Oh, he wouldn't never give up his spot as grillmaster of this household! He's grilling the steaks." Panchy grinned. "Have a daiquiri. I'll start bringing out the salad and oysters! He'll have the steaks on the table in no time." She whisked into the kitchen.

"What's going on?" Vegeta demanded, in a low voice, once it was just him and Bulma at the table. "What's wrong with your mother?"

Bulma took a deep breath and hope it would take him a _while_ to do the math on _this_ one. "She's just in a good mood. And Dad is grilling steaks. Mom cooks almost everything but Dad won't let her touch the grill. Something about grilling being a man's job."

He seemed to consider this. "Grilling is cooking over fire?" he asked, speculatively.

"Yeah," she confirmed.

He gave a nod. "Of course, that's a man's job," he said, matter-of-factly. "He's out there?" Vegeta gestured to the balcony door with a jerk of his head. Bulma nodded. He actually got up and went out on the balcony. She heard her father voice a greeting, hearing his voice but not the words. Vegeta replied something, and the two of them started talking. Bulma breathed a huge sigh of relief and vowed to make sure Vegeta did _not_ understand the meaning behind oysters and her mother's extra bubbly cheer for a _long_ time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the story. I sure enjoyed writing it. The rest of this story is finished and edited, so there won't be any radical departures from my original plot. The next six chapters are set, so I'm not going to be adding further plot elements from reader requests. If you manage to guess, then grats!


	15. Chapter 15

"Hello Vegeta, do you like grilling?" Dr. Briefs asked him as he entered the balcony patio. He was standing in front of a series of charcoal-fired contraptions covered in thick cuts of meat, wearing a thick, black apron. The aroma coming from the contraptions was nothing short of delightful, reminding Vegeta of times he'd killed some animal or another in some jungle or savanna and blasted it cooked and ate it right there. Ah, those were the days.

"Who doesn't like cooking with fire?" Vegeta asked, agreeably. "Nothing beats killing and burning your own meal. I usually used an open fire, or my own energy. This wood smells pretty good."

"Hickory. And we sous vide the steaks – it's a controlled-temperature water bath – that way all it takes is a quick sear on the grill and it's never overcooked." The other man deftly began flipping the flat slabs of meat. "Don't worry, there's more in the kitchen, Panchy will bring them out when the grill is clear. We made enough for you."

"Great!" Vegeta said. He took a sniff, enjoying the smell. "What's on them?"

"We keep it simple around here – just salt and my secret infused olive oil. Infusion is my preference, spices can burn and impart some off flavours, especially things like garlic. Some people would go for extra-virgin olive oil, but the heat actually destroys the volatile compounds. I use light olive oil." The man was ever a scientist. Just like his daughter, if one got him on a technical topic, he'd go on about it forever. This time, though, Vegeta didn't mind.

"I never had salt or spices or oil – never even thought of bringing those. Only ever had fire and hunger. This smells pretty good."

"Sure does."

They stood in companionable silence, enjoying the sizzle of the meat on the hot grill. It was a warm day, not as warm as his home planet, but still very nice. The sun was setting. The meat smelled great. He might not have gotten much training in, but he'd had a _marvelous_ 24 hours. For the first time in a long while, Vegeta felt pretty damn good about life.

"Say, you can take these to the table to rest – they need five minutes to let the juices settle. Let Bulma or Panchy know that we're ready for the next load." Dr. Briefs started to pile the slabs onto a large, clean tray. There was probably more than enough on the plate to feed Bulma's family, but Vegeta was glad to hear there were more coming because it was nowhere near enough for an active Saiyan.

"Yeah, sure," Vegeta agreed, accepting the tray. It wasn't heavy for him, just awkwardly sized for going through doors. He got it into the dining room and onto the table without spilling even a drop of delicious meat juice or dropping a steak. There was a giant pile of the leaves-in-sauce that Panchy called 'salad', and what seemed to be some kind of half-shelled bivalve mollusc on crushed ice. The molluscs appeared to be uncooked. Vegeta grinned. _Finally_ , a civilized meal!

"Dr. Briefs has asked for more meat slabs," he informed Panchy, who was still seeming even more outrageously cheerful than normal.

"Oh excellent, I'll go right in and get them!" the blonde woman chirped.

"I'll help you carry it," he offered, following her into the kitchen. She cheerfully handed him a tray laden with more oiled slabs.

"I had those oysters delivered this afternoon, they're as fresh as it gets," Panchy declared. "And I got lots, so eat as many as you like. There's bots shucking more."

Did she mean the bivalves? Oooookaaaaay. They must be some kind of special meal, judging by the way Panchy was acting. Cheerful was her default setting, and chirpy was her default voice, and her face was always beaming that beatific smile. But it seemed to Vegeta that she was slightly more enthusiastic than usual.

Maybe she was simply enjoying a night where she had to cook less, since Dr. Briefs was grilling the meat?

Whatever. He took the raw meat out to the patio and put the tray where Dr. Briefs indicated. The other man started carefully placing steaks on the hot metal surface of the grill. They sizzled, and Vegeta breathed deep.

"Nothing like grilling on a hot day, eh, Vegeta?"

It could be warmer for his tastes, but Earth was a cooler planet than his home had been. And it was warmer than how Frieza had kept his ships. "It's pretty good," he agreed. Dr. Briefs showed him his technique, mentioning the importance of proper spacing on the grill and the management of charcoal placement to create the most even heat distribution. Vegeta helped put the rest of the meat on the grill. Once all the slabs were cooking, Dr. Briefs stepped back and surveyed his work with an air of satisfaction.

"Well, those steaks should be rested. Let's go eat, we can turn these in a few minutes."

"Sounds good," Vegeta replied. They re-entered the dining room, Dr. Briefs hanging the big black apron on a hook outside by the door. They sat down, and everyone started to dish up on their own, so Vegeta copied them. Panchy had brought out a pile of something that seemed to be wrapped in a thin metal film. He put a few on his plate. When everyone else started unwrapping theirs, he started on his. Oh, a potato. He'd had those plenty, though usually Panchy took the skin off. He observed what everyone else was doing and followed suit, cutting the tubers in half and loading them with toppings.

"Have you had oysters before, Vegeta?" Panchy asked.

"No," he replied.

"They're very good for you, and it's said that they…" Panchy cut off. Wait, had Bulma just _kicked_ her under the table?

"They're very high in trace minerals like zinc and magnesium," Bulma said. She didn't look up from her plate. Panchy's smile widened.

"You eat them like this," said Dr. Briefs, and demonstrated, grabbing a shell and slurping off the contents. He put the empty shell back on the ice. "You can put some of these sauces on them, especially the mignonette, but a lot of people just like them as they are."

Alright then. He tried one. It was salty and coppery, and he liked that it was raw. He hadn't had anything raw in a long while. It was pretty good. And the meat was perfect, the salt and the oil made it absolutely fantastic and it hadn't overcooked. The potato done this way was excellent, and the salad was pretty good, too. The sweet drink Panchy poured out of a blender was also good, with a little more kick than the wine they occasionally drank with special meals. It was a meal fit for a prince. He thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Long after they had finished, he stopped, sated. He thanked the both of them quite genuinely.

"It was our pleasure, Vegeta," Dr. Briefs said, while Panchy's smile widened and she nodded.

"Yeah, uh, thanks," Bulma said. He'd noticed she had eaten everything but the oysters. She'd been giving them side eye all evening. Maybe she just didn't like oysters. Oh well, he had eaten her share quite gleefully.

Bulma excused herself a bit before him. He wondered if she was up to a reprisal of last night. How fast did humans recover? He finished the last of the meat, thanked the Briefs again, excused himself, and went off down the hallway he shared with Bulma.

Then he paused, outside his bedroom. What he wanted right now was Bulma, but she'd insisted earlier that she was too _sore_ to continue any horizontal exploits. He didn't want to go to his own bed. He was torn. And then after a moment he decided, fuck it, maybe he should suggest watching a _movie_ or something and maybe kiss her a bit. So, he went down the hall towards her door. He was just about to push it open when it opened on its own. She was standing there, holding some books and writing implements.

"Oh, Vegeta," she said, sounding surprised. "I was just coming to get you. Let's start on reading and writing."

He stared at her for a moment. Yeah, he'd asked her to do it… but this wasn't what he had in mind right now. What he had in mind was getting her under him, and failing that, kissing her until she was as fired up as he was and then letting her stew overnight, aching for him.

Damn. Hit by his own attack! He'd _literally_ asked for this. He sighed. "Yeah, let's do it. Where?"

"My workroom has desks we can use," she said, and pulled him into the workroom. He leaned on the door while she puttered around, removing papers from one of the worktables and clearing piles of stuff from a pair of chairs. She waved him over, placing the books and pencils on the flat surface.

He tried his best. She started out by getting him to identify the letters he could and make the sounds associated with them. Bulma was a patient and gentle teacher, never mocking him when he got something wrong, or condescending when he got simple things right. He was a little relieved. Given her lascivious tongue and completely sassy attitude, he'd half-expected it to be a nonstop stream of perverted digs on his academic prowess.

Then, she got him to practice writing the letters himself, saying the letter and its sounds each time he drew one. By the time he was done that, it had gotten late. She did one more thing, wrote several simple words and had him sound out each letter and try to guess the word. He got each one. She smiled at him, and his insides heated. Then she leaned over the desk and kissed him, and they flared white hot.

Damn, this desk was in the way. Vegeta rose up, lips not leaving hers, as they scrambled to get closer to each other. His arms wrapped around her, and he ravaged her mouth. Moments later, they were stumbling towards her bedroom door. She turned the knob and they half-fell into the room. She was pulling at his clothing, clearly trying to be careful in removing it. He wanted to rip hers off and went to break her collar open when she made a sharp noise.

"No, you're taking it off _nicely_ , this time," she snapped, and then went right back to kissing him. He started carefully picking at the buttons as they continued moving towards her bed. He'd managed to remove her shirt and was pulling her shorts down, and she'd gotten him shirtless with his pants in a puddle on the floor, when the back of her legs collided with her bed and they went down with him on top of her. He could feel how wet she was even through her panties and his boxers.

Her bra was some kind of puzzle and he was not in the mood. He fumbled with it and was about to just break it off her when she reached behind her back and released it. They paused to remove the rest of their underwear, rising up from the bed momentarily. And then they pulled each other back onto the bed, and he was between her legs, on top of her, and then he pushed her legs wider and slid inside.

"Owwww," she moaned. He froze.

"What?" He suppressed panic.

"Just sore, ugh, don't _stop_ , _please_ , Vegeta," she demanded.

Oh, he couldn't stop. Arms around her, he lifted her to meet his thrusts, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, locking her heels. He kissed her and drove into her, every one of her cries and gasps making him feel a little more like he was floating, incandescent. When she began to scream his name, he lost it, letting himself burn up, pumping into her with a roar.

When he came back down, he thought she might be sobbing. He grabbed her shoulder and examined her face, but she just moaned, "oh _God_ , Vegeta." So, he kissed her, savouring the feel of her in his arms and him inside her, the taste of her mouth, and the soft way she was kissing him back.

He could never get enough of her. That, he was starting to realize. He felt himself responding again, and caressed her, kissing her intently.

She made a noise to try to get his attention. He broke the kiss, letting her speak. "After this, I really _have_ to stop, Vegeta," she muttered. "Otherwise I won't be able to _walk_. And then who will fix your bots for you?"

He chuckled, lips on her neck. "I have enough for tomorrow," he said, moving slow and purposefully. She moaned lowly, and he squeezed his arms around her, pulling her close. He let himself surrender to her rhythm, let her lead. She moved under him, clinging to him, pulling him down into her. He danced with her, listening to the music of her breath and voice, feeling her pulse race against his touch. When Bulma came, chest heaving and legs tightening around his hips, he followed, feeling her grip in rhythm with his own release.

After, he remained twined with her, unwilling to leave the bed, unwilling to break contact for even a moment, even when sleep took him.

* * *

Bulma's alarm went off at 6 as usual, and the warm, heavy object partially covering her stirred. Disoriented, she tried to focus. An arm thumped across her chest, going for the source of her noise and groping her instead. She came fully alert. Oh right. Vegeta. And that alarm was annoying. She twisted underneath his weight, trying to get her phone, but he was grabbing onto her pretty hard.

"What…?" she heard him mutter. "…Fucking racket…"

"Vegeta, let me go, I need to turn my alarm off," she demanded. The grip on her tightened for a moment and then she heard him grunt and he let her go. She finally reached the phone and killed the noise.

"What was that?"

"My wake-up alarm. It's 6."

He shifted beside her. "I usually just wake up. Not long from this time."

"Yeah, well, I'm not a space soldier who can just wake up when I decide to wake up. I'd sleep for hours if I didn't set an alarm. And I like being productive in the mornings."

He grunted again. It seemed that could mean just about anything. She tried to sit up and didn't like the result. She flopped back down again.

"Huh?" he said, noticing her failed attempt.

"Too sore," she murmured.

He was silent a moment. "Then I guess any more is out of the question."

"Yes," she said, flatly. "Goddamn it, Vegeta, I need to _heal_. Maybe a Saiyan girl can take a sex marathon with you, but I have to stop and recover from time to time."

"Wouldn't know," he said, in a neutral tone. "There weren't any alive by the time it became relevant." Oh damn, maybe she shouldn't have said that. But he didn't seem too cut up about it. He'd said it kind of matter-of-factly.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. She attempted to dismount from the bed without putting pressure anywhere on her bottom. He looked over at her. "Do you need help?" he asked.

"I got this," she said, trying to awkwardly fumble her way to her feet. Oh man, was she ever sore. Stupid, sexy Saiyan. The worst thing was, if she wasn't so damn _sore_ , she'd be jumping him right now. Bulma finally succeeded in getting vertical, one hand on the bed for support. Walking was not comfortable, but she resolutely made her way for the bathroom to have her shower. Vegeta followed after her, wordlessly. He looked like he was deciding whether he should be smug or concerned. By the time he'd followed her into the shower, he'd seemed to settle on smug.

Bulma was concerned that he'd try to seduce her in the shower again, but apparently, he could keep himself under control long enough to get clean. They helped each other wash the hard-to-reach places. She had no doubt that if she'd let on for even a second that she was ok with it, he'd be on her in a heartbeat. God, he was smoking hot. Every inch of him was toned and stacked. She _really_ hoped Krillin came through with those senzu beans. And, that she could figure out something that she could do to stretch a senzu bean out over months for minor injuries like too much Vegeta.

She enjoyed the sight of him in a towel and dotted with water while she was brushing her teeth. His toothbrush was still there from yesterday, and he joined her at the sink. When they finished brushing teeth, she put on her makeup and he gave her ass a squeeze before leaving the bathroom, probably to go get his own clothes. "Come back after supper for more practice," she said, to his retreating form, not breaking stride in her cosmetics application. He grunted something that might have been acceptance.

If this kept up, she was going to just get the bots to move all his things to her room. Her closet could be thinned out enough for his stuff, it was more than big enough. Maybe she'd assess her closet situation after breakfast, because she sure as heck wasn't going to sit at her desk all morning. Sitting through breakfast would be pain enough. Damn that sexy jerk.


	16. Chapter 16

Krillin arrived around 2 pm. Bulma had gone through her closet and then helped her mother prepare snacks for the incoming friend invasion, going light on lunch because she knew she wouldn't be able to resist the sweets later. Even if only Krillin showed up, sooner or later these treats would all get eaten, so she and Panchy went all out.

It wasn't _just_ Krillin, though. It was pretty much all the earthling members of the team except for Master Roshi – Yamcha, Tien, and Chaiotzu. They descended on the lawn in her family's part of the Capsule Corp compound, where her friends usually landed. Bulma was already bringing out trays of plates and cutlery to the pool area when they swooped in.

"Hey guys," she greeted them, warmly, as they landed. "Mom and I made snacks, and we've got fresh-squeezed lemonade and iced tea."

"Oh hey, Bulma, you're looking… well," were the first words out of Krillin, after he'd given her a very blatant lookover for damage. Tien rolled his eyes – all three of them. Chaiotzu just smiled in that way he always did. Yamcha crossed his arms over his chest and made a grumpy face.

"Have a seat, boys. I'll start bringing out the snacks," she said, heading back for the kitchen. She and her mother hauled out trays of sweets and drinks, and her friends had taken up position underneath the big umbrella table by the pool. Once most of the stuff was out, she started serving them. Her friends sat quietly, politely accepting the beverages and food. When she got to Krillin, she muttered under her breath, "have you got the goods?"

He flashed her a victory sign from under the table, and she was impressed with his discretion as he produced a little brown cloth bag and slipped it to her. She gave him a little pat on the shoulder as she stashed it in her pocket. It felt like two or three beans in there. Korin must have been feeling generous.

Once she'd served them, she poured some lemonade for herself and dished up a slice of strawberry shortcake and very carefully took a seat across the table.

"How's training?" she asked, casually.

"Training's _fine_ ," said Krillin, "we came to make sure _you_ were fine."

"Speak for yourself, Chaiotzu and I came for those damn tasty little cakes your mother makes," Tien said. Chaiotzu gave a sunny smile and ate a petit-four.

"I'm _fine_ , Krillin," Bulma sighed. She ate a small éclair and took a sip of lemonade. It was great lemonade. It had better be, she had been the one to make it. "So, _how's_ _training_?" she asked, pointedly.

"It's fine, going great" said Tien, lightly. He loaded his plate with plenty of small pastries. Chaiotzu nodded and ate another little cake.

"I can't believe this, B," said Yamcha, glaring at his untouched lemonade. She rolled her eyes.

"I don't think we can fight him, not and _survive_ ," Krillin said.

"If we all worked together, we might be able to take him…" Yamcha grumbled.

"Dibs out," said Tien, knocking back some iced tea. Chaiotzu smiled and shook his head. Krillin looked pained.

"I really don't think that's necessary," Bulma growled at Yamcha.

"You can't be _serious_ , B," Yamcha erupted. "This is _Vegeta_ we're talking about. He kills planets for fun and profit, he killed most of us here, he's nothing but a fucking m—"

"I can kill you _again_ if you really like," Vegeta's icy voice cut off Yamcha's rant. Yamcha went white and startled in his seat. Everyone turned to see the Saiyan prince in training shorts and a wife-beater, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at them. The guy was maybe 5'6" if he was an inch and had still perfected the technique of looking down his nose at them. "And it was _Nappa_ who killed most of you guys. Except for _you_ , weakling. _You_ died to a _Saibaman_. _I_ killed Nappa, though." He flicked his gaze over them. "Where's Kakarot and the Namekian?"

"Too busy training," said Krillin. He was surprisingly _not_ shaking in his seat. Yamcha still looked a bit pale.

"They told Krillin and Yamcha to fuck off," Tien said, and shoved another pastry into his mouth. "Chaiotzu and I just came for the snacks. Damn, Bulma, tell Panchy these things are great."

"I made those ones," said Bulma.

"These are great," Tien repeated.

"Thanks," she responded. "Would you prefer lemonade or iced tea, Vegeta?"

He continued to glare at them for a few moments with that fixed, hostile expression. "Lemonade," he said.

"I don't fucking believe this," Yamcha muttered.

"Told you she didn't need our help," Tien said, under his breath.

Bulma poured a glass for Vegeta and set a plate out for him. Prince Asshole thumped his sexy ass into it and took a swig of lemonade, and then dished up a pile of sweets, still giving everyone hostile looks. Well, his hostile look didn't quite sweep all the way over to _her,_ but everyone else got it.

"So, what are you losers doing here, come to get your asses kicked in?" he demanded. "Because I can take a break from training long enough to kick your asses in."

"We just wanted to see how Bulma was doing, it's been a while," said Krillin, casually.

"Not that it isn't great to see everyone, but I'm _fine_ , guys," she said, exasperated. Wow, these petits-fours had really turned out well. Delicious.

Panchy came out right then, carrying another tray of treats. "Oh, hello Vegeta, taking a break from training? That's good, you need to relax from time to time, too!" her mother chirped. "Hello boys, it's good to see you. I hope you brought your appetites, Bulma and I have been making treats all day."

Vegeta thanked her mother by reflex when she put some cakes in front of him, relaxing his glare just for her. The rest of her friends stared at the exchange. Bulma bit her lip to keep from giggling or breaking into a grin. Panchy finished putting out new sweets. "So how many of you am I feeding tonight?" she asked.

"What's for dinner?" asked Yamcha, warily.

"I'm making a fish fry," Panchy declared. Bulma had helped slice mountains of cabbage for slaw before bringing out the treats for her friends and knew that Panchy had absolutely anticipated the martial artists' invasion. A fish fry was modular. They could cook what they needed. The fish was already battered and chilling – it could be frozen if needed and fried later.

"A fish fry, huh? That sounds really good, but Chaiotzu and I have something we have to get back to," said Tien. The doll-like psionicist nodded in agreement.

"I got a ball game," Yamcha muttered. Bulma suspected it was a lie, and he just didn't want to be anywhere near _Vegeta_. And _her_.

"I promised Master Roshi I'd be back by nightfall, he's got something planned, sorry Panchy. I'd really like to stay, but I can't," said Krillin.

"That's a shame, boys. Maybe next time," her mother beamed at them. "Enjoy the treats!" She sashayed back into the house. Bulma silently hoped that Vegeta _really_ liked coleslaw, because there was going to be a lot of it tonight. Oh well. At least coleslaw keeps for a day or two.

After Panchy left, Vegeta returned to glaring at everyone, in between bites of little cakes. Tien and his little friend ignored it, clearly there to enjoy the food and making it obvious that they did. Yamcha sulked, and Krillin just looked confused and worried. Bulma sampled petits-fours and made sure to not go overboard because there would be _mountains_ of food at supper.

Her friends decimated the pastries and polished off all the lemonade and iced tea, despite how awkward things were at the table. Well, awkward for Yamcha and Krillin – Tien and Chaiotzu really did just seem to be around for the food, which actually reassured her, because if they'd had a reason to be concerned, they would have been far more agitated. Coming just for the treats was actually a huge gesture of trust and respect that _she_ could handle _herself_. Vegeta was just being a jerk, and it was a sharp contrast to how he'd started to be around her and her family members. Seeing him wall up and go back to Prince Asshole really outlined how much he'd started to let his guard down around her.

"Well, we really need to get back to what we were doing. Thanks for the snacks, Bulma. It was nice seeing you again," Tien said, rising from his spot.

"Yeah, it was really good," Chaiotzu chimed in, floating out of his seat. As Tien and Chaiotzu got up, Yamcha got to his feet with a scowl.

"I gotta go, game starts in an hour," he said, in a hurry to leave. Before taking off, he turned briefly to meet Bulma's eyes. It was clear he was upset. "Be well, B," was all he said, and then took off before she could say anything in return.

"See ya, Bulma, if not soon, then definitely May 12th, 767," Tien said, with a wave.

"Thanks, Tien, Chaiotzu. I'll be there. There's no way I'd not be there," she promised.

Vegeta made a growling noise. "I'll be there, and I'll be the legendary Super Saiyan, and they'll be _scrap_ , so you better show up to watch," he snarled.

"Wouldn't miss it," Tien said, dryly. He and Chaiotzu took off.

"Change your mind about staying for dinner, Krillin?" Bulma asked.

"Uhh, no," the diminutive fighter shouted, jumping to his feet. "I should get going. Uh, anyways, Bulma… you stay safe, alright? I'll see you later, maybe stop by in a couple of months."

"Sure thing, Krillin. Say hi to Roshi for me." She smiled as Krillin blasted off. It was just her and Vegeta again. They stood for a moment, her thinking about the value of friendship, and who knows what _he_ was thinking, with that knot in his brow and determined glower. She knew it was a cover for what might _really_ be going on inside that stoic exterior.

"Your friends are weird," he said.

Bulma smiled, gently, still watching the sky. "I know, and it's the best thing in the world," she said, softly. He gave her a slightly puzzled look. She sighed, still smiling, and turned to the table, which was covered in crumbs and dirty dishes. "I had better get this shit cleaned up and see if Mom needs any help in the kitchen," she said, unburying the trays left on the table.

Vegeta made something that sounded like a sigh, arms still crossed over his chest. "I'll help," he said. It was unexpected, but most definitely not unwelcome.

"Thanks, Vegeta," she said, smiling at him. He took a deep breath and returned her gaze, before turning to start piling dishes on trays with her.

After they got the dishes in, he went to shower and change, and she helped her mom set up the fish fry. The bots could help a lot, here, because neither Bulma nor Panchy liked being covered in grease and spattered by boiling hot oil. Bulma got the bots set up and then set the table while things fried. Vegeta was already sitting, nicely dressed and looking almost patient. His eyes burned when they alighted on her. She was starting to know that look. It made her insides heat up and made her hope she could find a way to turn these senzu beans into something useful, quick.

The fish fry was fantastic – all the fish were perfectly cooked and crispy, and the chips were likewise excellent. And Bulma needn't have worried about the coleslaw overproduction problem. Turned out, Vegeta liked coleslaw. A lot. Of course, that wasn't saying much, as Vegeta liked most food, a lot. But he obliged them by eating most of it when they told him they'd accidentally made too much. She was a little in awe of his trash compacter skills.

"Reading practice," she reminded him, before excusing herself from the table. He gave her a slight nod and returned to finishing off coleslaw.

She'd managed to deposit the senzu beans in a safe place and get most of her makeup off when she heard him enter her rooms. "Be right there," she called through the doors. A few moments later they were set up at the same desk from last night. She started him out with review, which he aced handily. They practiced writing letters again, and she had him writing out simple phonetic words, trying to put them together on his own from the sounds. He was a quick learner. For all he was the world's biggest bonehead sometimes, Vegeta wasn't stupid. She guessed one didn't survive a life like Vegeta's by being stupid, even if he _was_ an arrogant asshole.

God, he was such a mixed bag of contradictions and hidden depths. She recalled how he had reverted back to his old, cold way when her other friends were there, and contrasted it with how he was somehow finally letting some of that shell crack around her and her parents. It was like seeing a wild animal edge closer to her open hand – wary, but curious.

He'd probably always be an asshole, Bulma had no doubts about that. But she also knew that with time, Vegeta might be able to open up enough to let certain parts of the world in. She realized then that he was already clawing his way into _her_ heart. She felt a brief stab of pain at the realization that he would probably not ever reciprocate or even acknowledge it. But what she had now with him… it was enough for now. She would enjoy him while she had him, before he ended up dead and out of dragon balls or left on some adventure and never came back.

When they rose from the desk, finished for the night, she sensed him trying to linger, unsure of what to do from there. He obviously wanted to stay with her, but he also knew she wasn't up to the sex. Despite his natural talent in the area, she got the impression Vegeta was not particularly experienced with sex and relationships. So, she reached for him, meeting his wary eyes, and pulled herself to him, sealing her lips on his. His hands on her were gentle and hot, and she could feel his pulse racing.

After a moment she broke off the kiss. "Vegeta, I don't really know if I can handle any more of you tonight, but would you come to bed with me, anyway?" she asked, softly. He met her eyes again, and she couldn't read what was behind that dark gaze. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers, hands on her shoulder blades.

"Yes," he said, quiet and low. She led him into her bedroom, and they undressed. It was clear he liked what he saw in her, and she certainly liked what she saw in him. She killed the lights and they climbed into bed, and she set her phone to charge on the nightstand.

"Turn off the noise, I'll wake you up," he murmured to her. She chuckled and obliged, disabling the alarm.

It seemed even if he wasn't going to get any tonight, he still wanted to be close enough to touch her, stretched out facing her. Damnit, she wanted him. She wanted him so bad it hurt. And she already hurt. But… she had those senzu beans, and tomorrow she would see about starting a tincture and maybe even get a chance to test it… and…

She turned to him, curling herself against his outstretched body, and wrapped her arms around him. He inhaled sharply as she made contact. "Bulma…" he grated out, like he was trying to warn her. He didn't need to warn her; she knew what she was doing. She kissed him, hard and hot. He moaned into her mouth and grabbed her, seemingly trying to meld with her body. He was so bloody hot. She thought she might combust.

"Vegeta," she gasped, breaking her mouth from his. "I need you. Please."

He made a strangled sound and grabbed her hips nearly hard enough to leave fingerprints on her skin, pressing himself against her. She slid one leg over his hip, and he pushed her back against the bed, hand going between her legs, finding her hot and needing him. He kissed her again, biting her lower lip, and she focused on that and not the discomfort of his entry. She was pushing herself beyond what her own body could take, and she didn't care. Once he was inside, he felt good, hot and hard, a perfect fit, his body the perfect complement for hers.

Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was crazy, but she could not get enough of this man. She'd regret it tomorrow morning, at least until she could get something figured out with those senzu beans. Maybe she could configure her desk to be a standing desk for a morning. Whatever. She needed him and she showed him how much, meeting him move for move. As far as she was concerned, he was perfect. It was quicker with him, for some reason, more intense and explosive. He had yet to leave her feeling unfulfilled, he seemed to have some instinct for what made her tick, and oh god was she ticking now. She could feel her whole body quake as he brought her to a peak and crossed over it with her, exploding with her. That ki of his washed over and through her, something she had become accustomed to and had started to actively _crave_.

God damn, taking Vegeta to bed was some kind of transcendent experience. It was long past where she should have stopped, and she just couldn't stop. She really should, though, at least for tonight. She kissed him gently and curled in his arms, intending to get some sleep. She had almost drifted off when he spoke.

"Why did they come here?" he asked, sounding puzzled.

It took a moment for her sleepy brain to process what the hell he was talking about. Oh, right. Her friends. "Because they're good friends and they care," she said.

" _Why_ , though?" he sounded genuinely confused, like there was something about this his truly didn't understand. He probably didn't. Maybe someday he would. She hoped so.

"It'll make sense eventually," she murmured. "Go to sleep." Whether he did or not, she didn't know, because she was pretty much out like a light.


	17. Chapter 17

Vegeta understood war. He understood combat. He understood hatred, and anger, and strength. When he'd sensed the arrival of the weaklings, all of Bulma's _friends_ , it was easy enough to shut down the gravity room and come out ready for a fight. They hadn't been there for a fight. He still wasn't sure why they had come. Maybe it _was_ just for the food. Bulma's sleepy response when he had been puzzling it over hadn't helped at all.

Wanting Bulma made sense. That was sex, right? Sex was a normal part of life for most people, and while he hadn't exactly been most people, well, she was hot and female and there, and somehow oddly endearing even when she was annoying. He could treat it like a battle, and he could _always_ win that one, with her surrendering to him in ecstasy. After the first night, he let himself surrender to it, too. He still _won_. The proof of it was in the way she sought him out, the way she couldn't stop wanting him, even when her body failed her. It was intoxicating. Sleeping with her was good – he never wanted to let go of her. There were no nightmares in that bed, only pleasant dreams.

But he didn't understand her _friends_. The whole concept of _friends_ was alien to him. He'd never had friends. If Saiyans made friends, he'd been too young when they all died to find out about it. Friends didn't exist in Frieza's army. Temporary allies, sure. Enemies and rivals, most definitely. But there had never, in Vegeta's whole existence, ever been someone that he could _trust_ , in any way. No one who would ever have had his back. Even Nappa. He couldn't understand how anyone could _do_ that – trust someone else like that. All it would take is just one knife in the dark when his guard came down.

Bulma's friends, though, they had showed up, and he was pretty sure it had something to do with _him_ , because of what the weakling was saying when he got out from the gravity chamber to investigate why all their ki signatures were clustered around Bulma's little flicker. Definitely the weakling was agitated and upset, though the little bald one seemed merely somewhat concerned, and the other two were just along for the ride. For some reason, that fact had made Bulma _happy_.

He just didn't get it. None of this made sense. Even all together, their power levels would never have been enough to overcome him. Piccolo and Kakarot had mysteriously decided to stay out of the picture, which could have changed things for him. He _would_ be the one to kill Kakarot, and the Namekian was stronger than he had been when Vegeta killed him the first time, but he was not as strong as Vegeta was now. But those four yesterday, even together and going all out, there was _no way_ they would have been able to take him. Even without Super Saiyan, he could leave them all a bunch of humiliated corpses.

They had to know that. Clearly, the weakling was aware. The three-eyed one and the little doll guy didn't seem to be there for a fight. But he knew if things had gotten serious, all four of them would have _tried_. And _failed_. All for a weak, soft woman who couldn't even fight. A woman that none of them could even lay claim to – not even the weakling. Only the weakling might have wanted to… the others were clearly not interested in the woman in that way. Yet, they would have laid their lives down for her, just like that.

Not that they'd needed to. He wouldn't kill Bulma. He could never foresee a circumstance in which that would be even remotely necessary. It's not like she could hurt him. Even if she could, betrayal just didn't seem to be in her nature. It was confusing, but he knew he was safe from her. She might get killed sticking her neck in the kind of business her friends got into, but heck, her friends would probably just wish her right back.

These people were so _weird_.

He just couldn't understand any of this. So, he did what he _could_ understand, and cranked up the gravity room controls and decided to expiate it through sweat and the burn of his muscles. He was at 130 gravities. He pushed it to 140 and went in. At noon he took a break to shovel some food in, and then went straight back at it. After a full day of it, thinking only of battle, of getting stronger, of pushing his limits, he felt exhausted but good.

When he pushed the door open to his quarters, something seemed off. The bed was in place and made and everything was tidy… Wait… _too_ tidy. He narrowed his eyes, senses alert. He sensed no foreign ki. The bots were hidden away. Where had his computer gone? And his used clothes basket? He tried to move quietly, just in case, heading for the room with all the clothes hangings. That was _empty_ , only the hangers there. The bathroom was likewise pristine.

What kind of attack was this, meant to erase his existence here? Alarmed, he searched for the woman's ki. She was in her little office/workroom on this floor. Her ki seemed strong and steady, well, for something that was basically a flicker compared to him. Her parents were likewise in normal positions – her father in the office down the hall from his gravity room, and her mother in the kitchen. There's was nothing untoward nearby that he could detect.

Was it the androids, ahead of schedule? But no, he sensed no destruction, no ki signatures fluttering out. He moved quietly down the hall towards Bulma, ki at the ready and senses alert. He opened the door, as quietly and gently as he could, slipping into the room. When she startled from her seat at her computer, he put his finger to his lips.

"Something's wrong," he said. "Something's been in my—wait, is that my computer?"

In the corner, beside the desk where they would practice his reading and writing, was his computer. He stared at it, then stared at Bulma.

"Was that _you_?" he demanded.

"Was what me?" she replied. She was standing up from her workstation and giving him a confused look.

"My stuff is gone from my quarters!"

"Oh," she said, brightly. "Yeah, that was me. Sorry, it just seemed to be a little annoying for you to have to go get dressed every morning."

He stood there for a moment, unsure of what to think. The battle-readiness began to leach out of him. "Oh," he said.

"Sorry Vegeta, I was going to let you know after dinner time…" she started, and then she seemed to realize something. "Oh right, you have to shower and change for dinner first. My bad." She arched an eyebrow and quirked a half-smile at him. "Want company?"

Again, no idea what to even _think_. "Are you not injured?"

"I figured something out that'll work for that – Krillin brought me a senzu bean," she said, with a wolfish smile.

Krillin _what_? A _senzu bean_? Those little miracle beans with the peculiar taste that healed life-threatening injuries in mere moments? _Krillin_ had brought one to _Bulma_? And she'd… done _what_ with it?

"A senzu bean…" he said, quirking an eyebrow back at her.

"Yeah, I made a tincture. Good for minor injuries. Papercuts, bruises, scrapes, aches and sprains. Too much of you in the sheets. Tastes gross, but it works. It should last a while, I got a few bottles out of one bean, and it only takes a drop," she grinned, triumphantly.

She'd made a concoction out of a _senzu bean_ , for the purpose of _getting into bed with him_. And somehow that cat guy who cultivated the things had supplied one for this purpose, to _Krillin_ , who still shook in fear when he saw Vegeta. Who, despite being willing to futilely take _him_ on in defense of her, still supplied the _senzu bean_. None of this fucking made any sense.

This woman and her friends would never stop confusing and amazing him.

Aw, hell. He'd figure this out, _later_. "We don't want to be late for dinner," he said, heading for the bedroom door. She followed with a grin.

They almost _were_ late for dinner, but Panchy didn't say anything about the fact that they arrived together and with wet hair, and Bulma with wobbly legs. He wasn't sure how much her mother _knew_. She seemed so _stupid_ at times, but then she could do something that made it all seem like it must be an act. The blonde woman was perplexing, but a mighty fine cook. He did _not_ want to offend her.

Today's meal was some kind of noodle soup with a variety of meats and beansprouts. It was delicious, with a rich broth. Panchy called it something that sounded like 'fuh.' He kept eating as long as she kept it coming.

Bulma excused herself before he finished eating, which she sometimes did. Her parents usually lingered at the table long after the meal was finished, reading books and magazines and doing puzzles. He had just finished up what would probably be his last bowl when Panchy spoke up.

"Are you enjoying your stay with us, Vegeta?" the blonde asked.

He paused, feeling suddenly wary. "I am," he said cautiously.

"That's good, dear. We like having you here. We want you to know that you're welcome to stay here as long as you want. Any friend of Bulma's is a friend of ours," she said. From behind his book, Dr. Briefs nodded in agreement.

Vegeta wasn't sure if he would call what was going on here _friendship_ , but he wasn't about the correct Panchy on that one. "Thank you, Panchy," he said, politely, wondering why she was bringing this up.

"We're glad you seem to get along with Bulma so well."

"Uh, yeah," he said, feeling flat-footed. "She's a… nice person. Um, thank you for the meal, Panchy. It was very tasty."

"You're welcome, Vegeta. I love cooking for hungry people!" Panchy's incessant smile widened at him. He wished them a good night and headed for the exit. Bulma's parents were _weird_. _Everyone_ on this planet was weird. Including Bulma. She was hot, though, and there was something damn sweet about the way she obviously wanted him. Of course, he wanted _her_ , but the fact that she was like a cat in heat around him was sure appealing. Especially since she wanted _him_ , not his rank or his protection or his title, or any of those things that might have been true offworld, where he was known.

Enough to obtain a damn _senzu bean_ , for the purposes of being able to keep sleeping with him without having to take time off to _heal_.

Hot. But weird. But hot. Gods _damn_. Most of the time she didn't _look_ like she was ready to pounce him, but the moment they touched… it was like getting shocked. Only good. Really good. He was getting stiff just thinking of her. That little bit of fun in the shower hadn't been nearly enough. After reading practice, he was going to get her screaming his name. He loved it when she was screaming his name. Somehow, she lost her ability to make raunchy jibes when he was inside her, and instead, all she could do was moan, scream, and yell his name, and a whole lot of 'oh God, yes!'.

His ki sense told him that she was in the bathroom when he entered her workroom. The reading things were set out. He took a seat and picked up the writing implement. This one was called a 'pencil' and with it, mistakes could be erased, though it required sharpening from time to time. The other sort, the 'pen', couldn't be erased. Bulma greatly preferred pencils. Vegeta liked that he could erase mistakes and make something perfect with no hint of error.

Idly, he started practicing while he waited for her, trying to recreate the alphabet from memory. Uppercase, lowercase. He made each letter's sound while he drew it. She came through the door and saw him working. He paused, looking at her.

"Oh, you're here and already started," she commented. She seemed pleased. Well, why wouldn't he be here and already started? He'd decided he was going to learn this shit, and that meant he was going to learn this shit! She looked over his work. "I think I should print out the alphabet, I seem to recall that's what they do in schools. I'll put it on the wall."

"Did I make a mistake?" he asked, grabbing the eraser.

"You missed a few letters and got some out of order, but don't kick yourself over _that_. You're doing it from memory, and this is still pretty new. Hold on, I'll print it for you, I should have done that already." She went over to her computer and put together a poster in less than a minute. It popped out of her printer, and she grabbed some blue gummy stuff and stuck it up on the wall next to their table. He noticed it also had the numbers, 0-20. Numbers were easy, these people used base-10 number systems which were the same mathematics as his own. But he appreciated the gesture all the same.

Diligently, he compared his work to the poster and started erasing. "Some of these look different from what I'm drawing," he said. "Like the 'g', and the 'a'."

"There's multiple ways to write them, and they're all correct. I'll put the variations above them in pen."

Confusing. "That's stupid."

"We didn't standardize everything until just a few hundred years ago or so, and even then, there were regional variations. It gets worse when you get to spelling – most of the words follow pretty straightforward phonetics, but things borrowed from other languages have exceptions, and stuff from ancient history has exceptions."

"How many languages do they _speak_ on this rock?"

"At one time there were probably thousands, but modernity has reduced it to a handful of big ones and a few hundred heritage languages."

He blinked. And yet somehow, they all knew Galactic Standard, even if their alphabet for it was complete _shit_.

"And _those_ all had different alphabets, too. Some used similar alphabets but made different sounds with the same letters," she added.

"That's insane!"

"Yeah, well, societies here vied against each other for thousands of years. It's only been a few hundred years since we've had anything remotely like global unification, under King Furry's line. They got in by finding the dragon balls and wishing to be royals. Actually, they haven't been that bad."

"I can't believe your planet is ruled by _dogs_ ," he said.

"Better than Frieza."

She had a point.

"We don't call them 'man's best friend' for nothing," she said. "Any anyway, they mostly leave us alone and let us do our thing. As far as rulers go, they are pretty decent."

He barely remembered his own father, the King of All Saiyans, King Vegeta. The only person who had ever believed in him, who had ever loved him. The only person _he_ had ever loved. His father had died when he was still a boy. _He_ had been in Frieza's army then, already, ostensibly as a fighter, but truly as a hostage for good behaviour. 31-year-old Vegeta could understand what 5-year-old-Vegeta could not have – he'd been a hostage, pure and simple. And then, a weapon. A weapon that Frieza had absolutely _no_ problems discarding the moment he rebelled.

Gods, he wished he could have been the one to kill Frieza, instead of that low-class joke of a Saiyan, Kakarot. Maybe once he attained the Super Saiyan transformation, he'd wish Frieza back to life just so he could kill him personally.

The pencil snapped, sending shards of wood everywhere. He blinked – he hadn't realized he had let his thoughts go like that. Bulma raised an eyebrow – she had no idea where his memories had gone. "Sorry," he said, feeling just a little sheepish that he'd lost control like that.

"I'll… uh… get you another. I got plenty." She rose and found another one of the yellow-painted things, freshly sharpened with a pristine pink eraser. He'd long since discovered the pink erasers were crap, the ones that did the best job were the multicoloured things. When he'd first laid eyes on those things, he'd been a little confused because the woman just didn't seem to have a lot of, well, goofy shit like that – her quarters were spare, and her workroom given over to function alone. Having compared a few different erasers, though, he had quickly realized why she had these things. They might be stupid shapes and colours, like horses with horns and rainbow manes, but the things fucking erased mistakes better than _anything_.

"Thanks," he said, and focused on trying to make the alphabet perfectly, rather than thoughts of his father or the past. He used the poster to get it right and decided that he would try every day without the poster and then erase his mistakes and do it over, until he got it _right_ on the first try, every try. She picked up the bits of broken pencil while he worked.

"You've got very neat handwriting," she commented. "When I was starting out, mine was a disaster. I think Mom and Dad still have some of my scribbles somewhere. I saw them once. Completely unreadable."

"When I was a child mine was atrocious as well, but I was taught how to make good reports. If I didn't, I'd get punished. I learned to be neat. These aren't hard to draw, there's a pattern to them. Not hard to be neat," he commented. He knew several different scripts in several different languages, including Saiyan, which was spoken only by him now.

"Write," she said.

"Huh?" he paused in his work, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Write. You write letters. You draw pictures."

"Whatever, woman," he grumbled, focusing on his work, making sure to speak each letter sound as he made each one, even the ones that had more than one possible sound. She began writing out some words on another sheet of paper while he finished his alphabet. When he was done, she put it before him. "What's this?"

"Sound them out," she suggested.

He examined the words, starting with the first on the list. "P-o-p… pop?"

"Yup."

He tried the others; they were mostly short and easy. They were words like 'cat', 'dog', 'play', etc. A few gave him pause, like 'kick', until she explained that a lot of words that ended in the 'k' sound ended in 'ck'. There were some longer ones, too, like 'water', which he figured out after a few moments. Then he got to a longer one. "V-e-g-e—hey! That's Vegeta!" he exclaimed. He examined the word again. "That's how you spell my name?"

"Well, there's probably other ways to spell it, since it's not an Earth name," she said. "That's how _I_ would spell it. I suppose you could also spell it 'V-E-G-I-T-A'."

"Great, now how do you spell 'Prince of All Saiyans?'" he asked, grinning. She rolled her eyes and took the sheet back, writing out the words, and gave the sheet back. He sounded them out, noting the letters. "Wait, why does 'prince' have an 'e'?"

"It came from another language and their spelling conventions were different," she said.

"Oh, right. Your writing system is all fucked up," he snorted. "What's this one? Hmm… b-u-l-m-a… oh, that's _your_ name. That's how you spell your name?"

She nodded. She took the page back and wrote something out, a series of words in a row. "This is a sentence. Go ahead and see if you can read it," she said, handing him back the paper.

"I, a-m… that's am… a… b-i-g… big, d-i-c— _hey!_ " He slapped the paper and glared at her. She was laughing hysterically. She looked at his face and laughed harder.

"Good job, you did it," she managed, between giggles.

Ohhhh this woman… He gave an aggrieved sigh. "Write something _else_ , I want to try again."

"Okay," she said, stifling a snicker. She wrote something else on a fresh sheet and handed it to him.

"I, l-i-k-e… licky?"

"Like."

"Oh, another 'e' that doesn't matter, ok. Uhh… b-i-g, that's big… b-u-t-t-s… butts?" he threatened another glare, but she just nodded and indicated he should go on. "Two 't's?"

She nodded.

He continued. "A-n-d, and I c-a-n-n-o-t, oh, cannot… l-i-e… 'lee'?"

"'Lie'," she corrected.

"I like big butts and I cannot lie?" he asked, incredulously. She nodded, smirking. He made a face.

"It's a song, here, let me show you the music video," she offered. She got up and went across the room to her workstation again, tapping rapidly at the input device. A visual recording came up, playing music. He got up and walked over to look. What he saw was… he had no way to describe what he saw.

"What the hell is this shit?" he asked. The music was indescribable. It seemed to be a song about someone who was absolutely entranced by sizeable female posteriors. The video was… an incredible testament to… he had no words…

Bulma was smirking. "It's just a humour piece," she said. "It's supposed to be stupid."

"Earth has a _lot_ of things that are stupid just because," he said.

"It's fun," she insisted.

"Whatever. Another."

She scribbled something down and he sat to parse it. "I-m… I'm. T-o-o… too?" At her nod, he continued. "S-e-x-y… sexy… f-o-r, that's for… m-y… me?"

"My"

"My… s-h… that's 'sh' when together, right? Sh-i-r-t… Wait, I'm too sexy for my shirt? What the fuck, woman? Is this another song?"

She was giggling and nodding.

"Alright, let's hear it."

She found the recording and started it. It played through a little and he just watched. Then he reacted. "What the fuck," he said, and it came out half incredulous laugh. "What the hell is this shit? Why's he doing that? He doesn't look that special, I could kick his… is that a _cat_? _Too sexy for a_ _cat?_ "

Beside him, Bulma was laughing, whether it was at the stupid song video or his reaction, he didn't know.

"Is there a _lot_ of this stuff?" he asked, incredulous. Certainly, some kind of time and resources and creative process had gone into creating… _that_. Mindboggling.

"Oh, you have _no_ idea," she said.

"How the hell is it no one's taken this planet over yet?"

This seemed to make her laugh harder.

"I think I'm done for the night," he said, sighing. "I don't think I can un-see any of that."

She just kept laughing, the harpy, and then teasingly sang a line from the song while dancing and unbuttoning her shirt.

"I am _way_ sexier than that guy!" he said.

"Damn straight," she said, grinning, somehow managing to pull off clothes while dancing… and singing. Her eyes met his mischievously, and he recalled that she was no longer _healing…_

"Bed?" he asked in a low voice, blood heating.

"Bed!" she agreed, cheerfully, swaying towards the bedroom. He followed, undoing his clothes and letting them drop as he went.


	18. Chapter 18

Their days passed more or less the same as always, Vegeta training in the gravity room and Bulma working on any of a number of projects, most of which were intended to help him. Like the new gravity room AI, which she unrolled a week after he started spending every night with her, to his surprise and not-quite-hidden pleasure. Or the armour – the plating which she was satisfied with, but the substrate fabric still eluded her. She made him new boots, after getting him to put up with her 3D scanning his feet to make boot forms. He complained about the imposition but appeared to immediately enjoy the boots that resulted from it.

And their nights, their nights were spent in bed, screwing like rabbits. His drive seemed endless, at least where she was concerned. And where he was concerned, so did hers. The senzu bean elixir worked well enough that she could actually keep up with him, and she did, gleefully.

But it was those evening reading and writing sessions where he really started to lay down his internal armour and let the real Vegeta leak out around her. She kept it playful and brought in humour – it seemed to help. He had a sense of humour, he just pretended he didn't. It was a very _dry_ sense of humour, and full of amused outrage. 'Stoic' could have been coined with Vegeta's name as a synonym, but as time went on, he loosened up a little.

It didn't hurt that when she played around and goofed off, he inevitably got turned on by it. More than once, her giggles had ended up turning to moans when he bent her over the desk and took her after she'd done something to tease him with some silly, sexy joke. He took teasing as a challenge, and apparently challenges got him hot and bothered.

Though, occasionally, he'd relate something from his life in space, and she'd see hints of just how fucked up his past had been, and the fact that he was still largely processing most of it and processing his new life on Earth. She listened without judgement and with a neutral attitude. It seemed to help, because he kept doing it, and it seemed talking helped him work through things. But it only seemed to come out at night, when they were relaxed and working quietly, or in the quietude after sex.

When he'd gotten beyond simple books and boring primers (which she tried to supplement with lascivious and silly phrases, just for his reactions), she installed a game on both of their computers and introduced him to typing as well as writing. It was a grindhouse-style zombie killer where one had to accurately and quickly type words to kill the zombies. The vocabulary was absolutely hilarious. He thought it was great. He wasn't very good at it… at first… but he rapidly improved. She got him to say the words out loud when he read them, and he quickly progressed from hunt-and-peck character searching to a passingly decent typist, able to recognize old words and parse out new words quickly. The vividly descriptive vocabulary often had him chuckling.

From time to time, he'd attempt books from her bookcase. Most of the non-fiction was pretty dense stuff, but he _tried_ , often asking her for help on unfamiliar words. He was intelligent – strikingly so. Most of the things that made him seem less intelligent seemed to be aspects of his pride, or some kind of cultural thing. Then she considered that Goku had some of the same blind spots and wondered if it was a Saiyan thing. He clearly retained most of what he encountered, even if he didn't always react at first. Anything he didn't immediately understand, he simply filed away until it was relevant, and then apparently assembled the whole story in one burst down the line.

Like the moment he figured that her parents not only _knew_ what he was doing to her every night, but _approved_. She had moved a couch to her room for them to read together on – they were well past simple practice at the desk and at this point, what he needed was as much experience reading as possible. She was chewing through a romance and he was crawling his way through a science-based book on cooking.

"Your parents know I'm fucking you and they _approve_ ," he said, suddenly. She looked up from her book, eyebrows quirked. Well, _she_ knew that, but Vegeta had never appeared to discuss it with them and seemed to be attempting to be discreet outside of private time with her – other than that one time after dim sum. She knew what a closed-off person he was, habitually, that it hadn't occurred to her that maybe he was worried about how her _parents_ would react. But where the hell had _that_ thought come from?

"Oysters," he said. "They offered me oysters as a thank-you gift for courting you.'

"What?" Bulma asked, sitting up. He stabbed a finger on the page of the book.

"Look here, it says 'oysters have long been considered an aphrodisiac by many and are commonly enjoyed in romantic settings or served to couples to encourage the conception of children.' Your mom keeps serving us _oysters_. I eat them because I like them, but I notice you don't eat that many and you keep giving her looks. I remember you said a while ago; an 'aphrodisiac' is something that supposedly makes you horny when you eat it. Also, your mother keeps asking me if I like it here and if I'm getting along with you." He stumbled a little while reading the words, but he clearly comprehended what he was reading, and demonstrated that he was thinking about what he was reading while he read. Everything she'd read up on literacy while learning to teach him suggested this was the key to literary mastery. But… what a fucking conclusion to draw.

Good God, there _was_ a logical process there. A pretty accurate one. "She wants grandchildren, like, _really_ wants grandchildren," she said. His eyes went wide and his face went completely frozen. He looked at her, and she knew by now that that look meant he was thinking, _hard_. The logic bunnies appeared to be leaping in Vegeta's skull. He scrunched up a brow at her.

"Come to think of it, why _aren't_ you pregnant? I mean, we've been doing this for _months_. Every day. I _know_ we're cross-fertile – Gohan's definitely a half-breed," he said. "Unless it's _you_. I know some people can't… oh Gods, it had better not be _me_!"

"It's not you," she said. "I take a medicine that prevents conception."

He stared at her. "Oh." Another long pause, the bunnies were no doubt hopping. "Why?"

"Because getting pregnant is one of those things people should _discuss_ , and even plan for," she said. "I know any idiot can do it, but I'm not an idiot."

It was clear that the possibility literally had not crossed his mind until now, and now it very much appeared that he was processing the possibility of getting her pregnant. He stared at the book about cooking blankly, clearly not seeing it and lost in thought. Then he turned, trapping her in his arms, eyes burning on hers. She could sense the intensity in him, the restrained power. "Would you ever?" he asked, voice hoarse.

"I've always wanted children," she said, mouth dry. "There was just never the right time, or the right…" she trailed off.

"The right man?" he snorted, and grinned. "Yeah, the weakling would never do. _I_ am no _weakling_."

"No, you certainly are not," she managed. Her heart was pounding.

"This medicine, can it be stopped?"

"Of course, it's not meant to be forever," she said. His eyes flared and he took a breath.

"Would you… stop taking it?" he asked, sounding almost hesitant.

She thought, for a moment. A long moment. This was _Vegeta_. She could be real with the fact that she adored him, loved him, even if she never spoke it. But she had no illusions that he'd ever stop being an asshole. He'd probably never even say 'I love you,' and definitely not 'marry me'. He would no doubt end up dead again at some point, and not from natural causes. Who knew if they'd always have dragon balls to rely on? But he clearly _wanted_ her and trusted her enough to drop his guard around her.

Lust and comfort level aside, while _she_ knew she loved _him_ , she wasn't sure _love_ was in his lexicon, or would ever _be_ in his lexicon. If she did this, she _would_ do this a single mother… but she was rich and had support from her family. And she doubted he'd stray for anything, except for battle, his first love. With all the effort it took to get him out of his shell enough for _this_ to be possible, there was no way he'd be chasing random skirts. So, she'd be single mother to a half-Saiyan, half-human potential powerhouse like Gohan, with a father who would no doubt still fuck her nightly provided he wasn't dead or in space. He would never exactly _be there for her_. But he'd be _there_ , if he was alive.

There were worse propositions. Far worse. She knew what a train wreck some people's lives were. This might not be _ideal_ , but… _he_ surely understood what might be at stake, he wasn't _stupid_ , and he clearly wanted this. She wasn't getting any younger, and early 30s was a good time… And by God, he was so fucking _hot_. And he _burned_ , so intensely. "Yes," Bulma said, softly, and was not caught by surprise when he kissed her hard.

In the months they'd been doing each other, he'd gotten pretty good at getting her out of clothes without damaging them, and quick. She'd gotten the same.

"You realize," she managed, between kisses, "that I have to _stop_ the medicine, first, it doesn't happen immediately or automatically. And sometimes it can take some time. Tonight ain't gonna do the trick."

"Don't care," he said, fingers already in her. She was already aching for him. She couldn't sense ki in general the way he and her other friends could, but she could sense _his_ when he got excited, and he was _very_ excited. It was like standing naked next to a bonfire. A sexy bonfire. She moaned under his touch, back arching, hands on his shoulders. He put both hands on her ass and leaned her over the arm of the couch, and dove right in.

Loving Vegeta was usually anything but calm, tender, or gentle. He quite obviously held back his full strength or she'd be a splatter, but that was basically it. There was generally no such thing as restraint, and tonight was no different. It was like a moth making love to a fireball – hot and wild and more than she should be able to handle, and when she came, it felt like she was going to burn up entirely, but she just couldn't _stop_. It seemed, neither could he.

After taking her on the couch, he moved them both to the bed so fast she didn't have time to react. A minute later, Vegeta was ready to go again. She was silently thankful for the senzu bean concoction, because she was going to need it in the morning. They were like lions, frenzied bursts of intense sex followed by little cooldown periods, and then more sex, for _hours_. She knew he could hold himself back because he'd done it in the past, but usually he came whenever she did. And he always made her come. Since he'd pounced her that first time, months and months ago, she'd had more orgasms than she thought could exist in the universe.

When they finally came to a halt due to the need to actually get some _sleep_ , they lay twined together in their bed, arms around each other. Vegeta was a sleep-glomper, unable or unwilling to let her go during the night. She didn't mind, and she'd gotten used to the fact that he was a few degrees warmer than she and had pretty much done away with blankets entirely.

"I'll pull the goaltender tomorrow," she muttered, on the verge of drifting off.

"The… what?" he asked, sleepily.

"The birth control. I'm stopping it tomorrow." It was close enough to the end of this cycle that she could, only three days out.

"Good," he said, and snuggled closer. His breathing evened out into the rhythm of sleep, and she followed him into the darkness shortly after.

The next day, she dropped the rest of the pack off at the pharmacy to be disposed of, opting to take the free information package for first-time parents offered by the pharmacist when she explained that she was thinking about starting a family.

Five days later, he woke her up, agitated. "You're bleeding, and I can't see a wound anywhere," he said, clearly upset. "Your blood should stay _inside_ your body!" She moaned and stirred, feeling the cramps start.

"It's just my period, don't worry your sexy head over it," she groaned. The headache had already begun.

"What?"

"I'm menstruating."

Black eyes examined her face intently, that look of confused concern stamped across his features. "What's that?"

"I don't know about other races, but if a human female doesn't get pregnant, she bleeds once a month, it allows her body to prepare for the next fertility cycle."

"But you've never done this before," he protested. He looked worried that he had broken her, somehow.

"Because I had continuous birth control so I wouldn't menstruate because it's painful and annoying," she said. "Let me up, I need to go to the bathroom and stick a plug in and find some chocolate."

"Do you need first aid?" he asked, letting her get up. She'd only just started bleeding, it seemed. Not enough to mess up the sheets. Though, they got washed every day and the bed made by the bots. He followed her to the bathroom.

"No, I don't. I need a tampon or pads," she said. The look of obvious confusion on his face had her sighing, so she opened the closet where she kept towels and other supplies and pulled out the little basket with emergency feminine products, and showed him, explaining things as she went. Maybe Saiyan females didn't menstruate, or maybe he'd just been too young when all the women in his race were killed by Frieza. She'd learned that he'd been all of 5 when that happened, and already a hostage. He'd obviously learned what sex was at some point, and clearly understood how babies happened, but she doubted he had had any such thing as comprehensive sex education on how it all works, especially not for humans.

"Does this mean we can't have sex?" he asked, after she'd explained the human menstrual cycle. She'd made him turn away when she put the tampon in, but she'd already come to find out that Vegeta did not have a concept of personal space in private. He'd follow her into the bathroom pretty much without batting an eye.

"No, but most people prefer not to, whether because of taboos surrounding it or because of the mess."

"Taboos?"

"A lot of cultures have taboos around menstruating women, declaring us unclean or dangerous. And some people just find it gross. Things can get messy. Some people love it, though, because of the hormonal surge and the, uh, slipperiness." She decided not to tell him about red winged angels. He'd discovered oral sex already and enjoyed eating her out as much as she enjoyed blowing him, which was a lot, but red winged angels might just be a _bit_ much.

"It's just blood though, right?"

"Technically it's not blood at all, but most of the time it _seems_ pretty bloody," she said.

"Smells like blood."

She nodded. "Come on, let's shower."

"You got that plug though," he protested.

"We don't _have_ to have sex in the shower, and I can pull it out and put in another one, though it'll be uncomfortable because I just put it in," she said, dryly. She got into the shower and he followed, wordlessly, helping her wash but otherwise keeping from getting too handsy. He seemed so damn _concerned_ that it was almost hilariously cute.

Though it didn't stop him in the evenings… in fact, the blood seemed to excite him more than usual. They put towels down on the bed and showered after, but it seemed he didn't give a shit about human taboos.

And then when her period ended, they kept going, and two weeks after her period started, she was so incredibly horny that she startled him with the intensity of it. For two days, she refused to even let him go train, which he only complained about a _little_ bit. She could swear she felt conception occur but wasn't sure about it until her next period didn't arrive. She bought a test, and a week later he watched, waiting, beside her, while the results appeared. It seemed like he wasn't even willing to breathe.

"We're pregnant," she said, and let out a whoop when he grabbed her, kissing her hungrily. The test clattered to the ground, forgotten, and he practically teleported them back to bed, intent on seducing her. "Oh, Vegeta, that isn't going to change anything," she said, when he made it clear what he wanted.

"Don't care," he said, grinning, and tackled her gleefully. They arrived at breakfast late, disheveled, and both of them unable to stop grinning.

Her mother noticed, of course. "You two seem like you're in a good mood, this morning," she said.

Vegeta's grin just widened, and Bulma smirked. "You're going to be grandparents," she said.

Panchy put her coffee mug on the table with an abrupt thump, face fixed into an ecstatic grin. Her father dropped his newspaper and stared at them both with a widening smile.

"Oh honey, I'm so happy," Panchy gushed, hugging her tight.

"It's about time, I don't think Tights will ever have kids," her dad said. "This had better be your doing, young man." He tossed Vegeta a look. Vegeta clearly couldn't keep the smug look from his face. "Welcome to the family, Vegeta."

"Thanks," Vegeta replied, still grinning.

"It's about time all those oysters got to work, I was getting sick of them," Panchy said. Vegeta actually flushed at that.

Her mother brought out breakfast – frittatas – for them both, nagging Bulma to eat more because she was eating for two. "Mom, we only just _found out_ ," she protested, but Panchy was clearly over the moon with joy.

Things seemed to be going pretty well, in general, and Bulma was satisfied with life. Vegeta continued to train, furiously, climbing over 400 gravities. They had a year until the androids were supposed to arrive. And then Krillin came for a surprise visit, and everything changed.


	19. Chapter 19

Bulma's program was _great_ for training. It pushed him, constantly, so that he was _always_ at the edge of his limits. As a result, the growth was drastic. But somehow, it was _still_ not enough to trigger the transformation. Kakarot had become Super Saiyan after 100 gravities. Vegeta was at 430 and still it felt like it was nowhere in sight. It was frustrating.

Some parts of his life were going _great_ , there was no doubt about that. Bulma was pregnant, and his line would continue, provided they didn't all die to androids in a year. Things were better than he'd ever experienced before. There was no one around who he had to risk a betrayal from, and he could actually let down his guard now and then.

But he could not break through whatever barrier kept him from Super Saiyan, and it burned him inside. Kakarot could do this. A low-class, third rate, probably _brain-damaged_ idiot had managed to attain the legendary Super Saiyan, before _him_ , Prince Vegeta. And two years later, he was far, far stronger than he had ever been, and it was still _not enough_.

If Bulma noticed his rising frustration, she didn't mention it. She mated with him as passionately as ever, but her thoughts seemed to focus inward far more frequently, rather than extending to him. She was radiant, though there were a few weeks where she was definitely _not_ radiant, because she'd spent most of them puking her guts out in the bathroom and unable to stand the smell of foods she usually liked. She'd assured him this was normal. And then proceeded to subsist on nothing but pickles and watermelon for at least two weeks.

And then one day he was trying to push himself to 440, every muscle burning, every movement feeling like the verge of disaster, when he sensed a familiar ki approaching. Barely able to focus on anything but simply surviving his own training regimen, he choked out the verbal command to bring down the gravity field and end the program. Bots powered down and he gasped on the floor for a few moments.

What was the little bald guy doing here? He only sensed that man, and Bulma's ki, no one else. He wiped sweat from his forehead with a towel from the rack outside the gravity room and headed up the elevator to the pool area, where it seems the other had landed. When he got there, they were both sitting at the umbrella table, and the bald guy had a glass of lemonade and some pastry from the kitchen, and Bulma had her hand in a jar of pickles.

He scowled at the man. "What are _you_ doing here?" he demanded.

"Oh, hi Vegeta. I just came by to see how Bulma was doing and see how your training is going. We've only got a year left," the bald guy said.

"I'm aware," he growled. He couldn't keep the snarl out of his face.

"Goku's been training hard, too, but I'm a little concerned. That heart virus hasn't shown up yet, but…" the bald guy trailed off, maybe seeing Vegeta's face at the mention of _Kakarot_. "Man, I _hope_ you got this, because otherwise we're fucked."

He _didn't_ 'got this', and it chafed. He said nothing, just taking a seat next to Bulma, glowering. Panchy came out with more lemonade and a tray of cakes. And more pickles for Bulma, who was getting to the end of the jar.

"Glad to see you out enjoying the sun with friends, Vegeta," Panchy smiled. He thanked her automatically, and then became aware that the little bald guy was staring at him like he'd grown a second head. He levelled a glare at the little shit.

"Thanks, Mom!" Bulma said. She took an experimental sip of lemonade, seemed to find it to her liking, and drained the whole glass. Then she eyed the pickle juice like she was considering it, as Panchy put a pair of pitchers on the table – lemonade and water. He had no doubt Bulma would do it. He'd _seen_ her drink pickle juice. It had given him a shudder, but she'd downed half a jar just like that. Panchy had just told her to make sure she got some water, after, and assured him this was somehow _perfectly normal_.

She did it. She straight up did it. Vegeta watched as she tipped back the jar and finished off the pickle juice. The little guy stared at _her_ , instead. Vegeta almost cracked a smirk. Clearly, no one had read the other man in on what was going on. Well, if they hadn't told him, _he_ wouldn't say a thing… let the guy figure it out on his own. Then she grabbed the water pitcher, filled a full glass, and downed it in one go. She looked at the pastry on Vegeta's plate. "You gonna eat that?" she asked.

"Go ahead," he snorted. She did. Baldy stared.

"Bulma, are you _feeling_ alright?" the other guy asked.

"Yeah I'm great," Bulma said, not pausing in her assault on the pastry. Vegeta dished up a different one from the tray Panchy had left. It was good she was eating. Pickles and watermelons were not enough, even if humans didn't have the same caloric needs as Saiyans. He hoped she could manage some protein, soon.

"Are you _sure_? I mean, you look _fine_ , actually, real good, but…"

Vegeta growled, not even realizing he had until the guy startled and shook in his seat.

"I'm fine, Krillin. Are you staying for supper?" she said. She seemed torn between the pastry and the fresh jar of pickles. Vegeta reached out and opened the jar lid open for her, wordlessly. She cracked him a smile, and then put a pickle on her plate. And a pastry.

"I'll pass, I think," the other man said, watching the scene with obvious confusion.

"Are you sure? I think Mom's making salmon with kale tonight," she said, tone slightly dreamy when she started talking about food. "With lemon sauce, and rice."

"Yeah, I think I'll be fine," was the reply.

Vegeta really hoped that Bulma would _eat_ some of it _and_ keep it down. She'd lost weight… and she wasn't very big to begin with. He thought pregnant women were supposed to get _fat_. But he was fine with the little bald guy leaving, because he did not want to put up with his presence through dinner. Dinner was a time to relax.

Fortunately, the guy decided on his own that he'd get the fuck out of here, and Vegeta continued to glare at the receding ki signature as he flew off back to wherever he came from, after promising to return in a few months.

"You really are a jerk sometimes," she said, after the man had left.

"What?" he challenged.

She rolled her eyes at him. "He's a friend, you don't have to come boiling up here to glare at him."

"Tch." He glared at the remaining pastries and uncrossed his arms. "You should eat some more."

"I'll be fine, I'll get salmon at supper. Mmm… salmon."

He was relieved to hear she intended to _eat_ , real food.

But the little man's visit fuelled the discontent and frustration that had been rising inside him. A week later, he had pushed the gravities to 450, and every moment in the chamber was a life or death fight for his very survival, every breath agony, and every twitch of his muscles a massive undertaking. And yet, it was still not enough.

The night he reached 450 gravities, as he held Bulma in bed, he decided. "Can you make me a ship?" he asked.

"What?" she asked back, sleepily.

"Can you make me a ship? I'm at 450 gravities and … still no closer," he spat, disgusted with himself.

"I'm two and a half months pregnant and you want to _leave_?" she asked, incredulously.

He sighed. "It's not… _that_. If these androids come and I'm not able to transform…" he trailed off.

"Still no, huh?"

He sighed again and ground his teeth.

"I'll do it, but I'm setting an alarm so you can get your ass back here and meet your own child, before you rush off to go get yourself killed," she said.

"Deal," he agreed. "And I'm not gonna die, not to _that_ trash."

"You'd _better not_ ," she grumbled.

A week later, he stood outside a ship in armour she'd constructed for him, Bulma watching as he prepared to board. There was enough preserved and capsulized food laid away for even him to survive for a year. He turned to enter, and she stopped him with a hand on his arm. Curious, he turned to her, and she was holding out a small, brown bag.

"Senzu bean," she said. "Just in case."

He blinked, feeling a sudden rush of … something. He gave her one last kiss, and then he tucked the precious bean into a pocket and boarded the ship. The hatch closed, he conducted his pre-flight check, and launched, the planet receding below him.

Moments later, he was in space.

* * *

Sleeping alone was hard after so long with Vegeta in her bed. She hadn't slept alone since the night they'd first had sex. She had to use covers again, only they were too hot, or too cold, and she could never get comfortable. As Bulma's belly grew, it got worse and worse. It got to the point where she quite frankly considered creating a stuffed stand-in to cuddle at night.

In the seventh month, she actually made one, a Vegeta-shaped body pillow with a screen-printing of him on it, dressed in one of his shirts that still smelled like him. In the eighth month, she went into a nesting frenzy, having her room repainted and preparing his old rooms as a nursery for when the baby was old enough to sleep unattended. She obtained a full supply of diapers and clothes in a number of sizes and stocked up on other baby accoutrements. She created carefully calibrated real-time lifesign monitors and constructed a high-tech bassinet for her own room, for the first few months of the baby's life. She was as close to ready as she could get.

Krillin arrived when she was eight and a half months along. He landed by the pool and she came out to greet him.

"Hey Bulma, just stopped by to see how you were— _Oh, holy shit, you're pregnant_ …" he shouted, staring fixedly at her enormous baby bump, with his jaw almost on the floor.

"Fucking can't wait to deliver," she groaned. She flopped onto a chaise lounge that had been pulled up by the umbrella table.

"Who… ah… no… don't answer… oh God I was _not_ expecting this…"

She waited for him to stop malfunctioning. Panchy whisked out immediately with some lemonade and treats. She thanked her mother, grateful… she hadn't wanted to waddle in to get anything. Waddling out to see Krillin had been enough. They hadn't been expecting anyone, but Panchy always kept some ready to thaw in case of surprise visitors. There hadn't been any for a while.

"Where… where's Vegeta?"

"Space," she said. "Training."

"Why isn't he _here_? I mean, is he the… father?"

"Yes."

"Oh God, I was _not_ expecting this…"

She sighed. "He'll be back in time, don't worry."

"For the baby?"

"For the androids."

"Oh…"

"So, how are you?" she asked, after he'd sat in stunned silence for a few minutes.

"Fine… fine… oh God… I don't believe this." She was getting tired of his broken record.

"Krillin…" she sighed. "Cut it out. It's a baby. Yes, it's Vegeta's. He's in space. He'll be back in time to shred the androids. Do you honestly think he'd ever miss a fight?"

He was silent another moment. "I guess this explains the pickle juice last time."

She snorted.

"So… boy or girl?"

"I didn't ask, I wanted the surprise," she confessed.

He scrunched up his face. "How…"

"How what?"

"I mean, he's such an asshole…"

She snorted again, smiling absently. "Yeah, he can be a real jerk sometimes, especially in public. But in private he's actually kind of sweet. And a real tiger in bed." Oh God, she missed him. She hadn't had a decent orgasm since he left for space. Her toys just didn't do the trick. She'd heard pregnant women got horny but hadn't believed it until it happened to her… and that jerk was off beating himself up trying to become Super Saiyan and leaving her the size of a whale and missing him. Right _now,_ she wasn't horny. Her feet hurt, her back hurt, and she had a slight headache and felt kind of crampy. Actually, more than a little crampy. It was annoying.

"I… did not need to know that…"

"He'd better not die to those androids. If he dies, I'll wish him back and kill him myself." The fact that she was absolutely incapable of harming him didn't matter. It was the thought that counts.

Krillin took a deep breath. "No one is going to believe this…"

"Like I care, and you're not going to tell them," she said. The lemonade was good, and the treats were also good. It was nice out. She lived near the equator. It was always nice out. A fine, sunny, October day. The only thing that was missing was Vegeta.

"I do _not_ know what I am going to tell Yamcha…"

"Yamcha can go fuck himself. And you're not going to tell him," she repeated.

"Bulma…"

"I'm serious. He's a non-committal jerk, and had no problem sleeping with several women behind my back… I found out, you know." She _had_ , too. Gossip eventually got around. "At least Vegeta wouldn't ever cheat on me with another _woman_. He'd run off to go get himself killed at the first sign of a battle, but I don't know if that's quite the same thing."

Krillin stared at her. "I have no words…" he said.

"Are you staying for supper? Mom's making eggplant stir fry. I've been on an eggplant kick."

"Eggplant, huh?" Krillin said. He looked confused. "I… uh… sure. Sure. I guess. When are you due?"

"Any time between now and a couple of weeks from now would be considered full term delivery. The head's already dropped."

"Oh, dear God."

They sat out by the pool until dinner time, sipping lemonade and water and occasionally chatting, though Krillin was clearly unsettled. But he was a good friend. Her mom came out to call them in for dinner and she stood up, wishing her back would stop aching. She would be so _happy_ when this kid was out of her body.

Something twinged inside as she took a few steps towards her mom. She felt her insides contract. Something wet trickled down her leg. She stopped dead in her tracks. "Mom… I'm in labour!" she yelped.

Krillin fainted dead away.

Almost a full day later, it was Krillin who was sitting nervously outside the delivery room with her dad when she finally gave birth to her son. He was pink and wrinkled and had a full head of periwinkle hair, and his daddy's eyebrows. He also had very healthy lungs, and _no_ tail, which would have been hard to explain to the hospital. They cleaned him up and placed him in her exhausted arms, where he latched almost immediately and sucked, bleary blue eyes fixed on her.

"Hello, Trunks," she greeted him. Her dad was out handing cigars around, and her mother was in the seat beside her, smiling broadly. "Aren't you beautiful…" Ok, he was an ugly little wrinkled thing, but to _her_ , he was everything.

"He's lovely," Panchy gushed, her hand on Bulma's shoulder.

Bulma smiled. About 40 minutes ago she would have cheerfully slaughtered Vegeta. But now, all she could think about was what a beautiful baby they'd made.

Krillin came in, with balloons that said 'Congratulations, new baby!' and 'It's a boy!' "They didn't have any 'Congratulations, it's half-Saiyan,'" he said. "They also told me no flowers."

"I don't want to smell flowers right now, they'd probably make me hurl," she agreed. "And I'm not surprised about the balloons. Thanks, Krillin!"

The next day, she took Trunks home. Krillin offered to stay with her, but she told him he could go back home if he wanted, and not to tell anyone else and to act surprised when he saw them in May.

She spent her days with her baby and waited for May.


	20. Chapter 20

May 12, 676. Bulma, Yamcha, Tien and Chaiotzu waited at the appointed place, for the others. Yamcha was cranky on seeing Trunks and realizing what had happened, and insisted that a battlefield was no place for a woman and a baby, but she wouldn't be budged. Tien and Chaiotzu had taken it all in stride. Vegeta had still not arrived, but her DEW alert had gone off as soon as his craft was within range, about half an hour ago. He'd be here, she knew it. He'd clearly cut things close, though. She wished she could have seen him, spent a night with him, before all this hit.

Yamcha stiffened, watching the sky, and she knew he'd detected the ki of their friends. They blazed through the sky and alighted in front of them, and then everyone looked surprised to see Bulma with a baby. Yamcha tried, unsuccessfully, to imply that he was the father, but it was Goku who guessed the truth. And then called Trunks by name.

Wait… what? Maybe Krillin had let it slip, after all… but he was playing ignorant pretty convincingly. Krillin had probably leaked and was now trying to cover it. Yeah, that's it…

They chattered a bit and then Yajirobe pulled up with a haul of senzu beans from Korin. He wouldn't stick around – the guy never did, if he could avoid it. But when he flew off, his little two-seater was blown out of the sky.

That was them… the androids. Her friends stiffened, ready for a fight. They gave her the senzu beans for safe-keeping and headed into the city. She sighed and figured she had better go fish Yajirobe out of the ocean.

She hopped into the craft, buckled up Trunks in his baby seat, made sure the ejection system with his parachute was good to go just in case she got shot out of the sky, and flicked on the ki monitor system. Dots came up for all her friends, with life status estimates. They still missed most of the action, but she could see when Vegeta joined the fray… and Goku tapped out, carried off by Yamcha. She was worried for Goku… but relieved that Vegeta had survived and returned from space, at last.

When she got him home tonight, she was going to jump his bones.

Only, they got shot down just before they closed on the combatants, and it was the boy from the future that saved her and Trunks. It wasn't Vegeta, but she never expected him to. Not when there was a fight to be had. The boy from the future got quite upset by this, for some reason, and went to yell at him over it. Honestly, she wasn't surprised at Vegeta. Battle was truly his first love, anything she had for him would be a pale second. She didn't care.

Not much later she realized who the boy from the future actually was… and gave her little baby boy a speculative look. "Well, at least we know you grow up to be hot," she said.

Piccolo eventually decided that a battlefield was too dangerous for a woman and a baby, against her protestations that she would be fine, and Gohan was deputized to get her and Trunks out of there. And Yajirobe.

And then, the shit hit the fan, and she was too busy constructing bot self-destruct controls and manufacturing emergency armour to worry about seeing Vegeta again, because of something called Cell. So, she flew to the Lookout with her load of armour, and the hope that her future son and the man she loved would both survived this, somehow.

* * *

 

One year in space, training, to finally attain the legendary Super Saiyan transformation only when he had crossed into giving zero fucks right at the verge of death. Only to get his ass kicked by those tin cans… but by then Cell was the bigger threat and he had seven days to train. Seven days… and a year? Kakarot introduced him to something called the 'hyperbolic time chamber', and he wondered why the fuck he was only finding out about this now. But he took the pink-haired boy… his son… from the future… and went to train. A year in there was a day outside and the two of them came back stronger than before, though he still wasn't sure what to think of the boy.

Though, it was good to see Bulma again, even if he didn't let it show in front of everyone else. The baby had given him a whole lot of stink-eye, though.

But then, they had a monster to kill. And he was determined to be the man to do it.

Cell proved stronger than expected, and Vegeta fought with all his fury and strength. He had plenty of both, built up from a lifetime of struggle and the constant, burning need to push himself to become stronger and stronger. It still was not enough. And then, Cell declared something called the Cell Games, and he did another year with Trunks in the time chamber, and fought again… and yet it was not enough.

it wasn't until Cell's cheap shot from the smoke – the same attack Frieza had used to end Vegeta's own life – punched through Future Trunks' heart, that he realized he'd been wrong. About everything.

Seeing his son drop ignited something in him. Something just flat out snapped. He went all out, angrier than he'd ever been in his entire existence. It still wasn't enough. In the end, Kakarot was dead, and with it his chances of ever proving himself stronger, and Gohan had been the one to kill Cell. And Vegeta cradled the body of his dead son from the future in his arms and resolved to do better.

Dragon balls resurrected the dead, including the Trunks of the future. He stood on the edge of the Lookout with the boy, the wind in both their hair, as the sun set.

"I'm sorry. I'll try to do better," he said.

"I think you will, Dad," Trunks said. "At least the me in this timeline will grow up with you there."

They stood in silence together, lost in thought. Vegeta thought of his own father, how he had never gotten a chance to really get to know him, and now how he had a chance to be a father to Trunks. He thought of the feeling that had ripped through his chest when this Trunks died. And he thought of Bulma, with her exotic blue hair and eyes, and her incessant teasing and irreverent attitude, and how beautiful she was when she was underneath him, screaming, and how she was the one thing he knew he could always count on, above and beyond his own self, even. And he resolved to truly do better, this time.

"I think I'll ask your mother to marry me," he said, speaking at last. "Do you think she'll say yes?"

Trunks stared at him. "Yeah, Dad, I think she'll say yes. She always said she loved you, but that you were a stupid jerk."

He closed his eyes and took a breath. "Bulma said that?"

"I think you've heard her say it a time or two already," Trunks said.

"Not that. The part about loving me," he grumbled, feeling a little aggrieved. He already knew she called him a jerk. And an asshole. And Mr. Badman. And a stupid, sexy Saiyan. She had a list of epithets and he was pretty sure he'd heard them all.

"Yeah, Dad. She did."

"Do you think she does in this timeline, too?"

"Probably. You didn't die, at least."

Another silence. "What happens to you, now?"

"I guess I go back to my time. We're still not too sure how it all works, since it's clear that my actions have changed time. It's what I wanted to do, but I guess I'll find out what happens to me when I go back."

"I'll miss you," he admitted.

"I'll miss you, too, Dad. I'm glad I finally got to meet you, and Goku, and all the others, and see Gohan alive again. And I'm glad you all survived… well… maybe Goku will be back some day, who knows?"

Vegeta sighed. "I would have liked to kick his ass, just once…"

"I'm sure it'll happen, somehow, no one stays dead here," Trunks said.

"I'd better get home to her; she's waited long enough…" he mused.

"I'll come say good-bye to everyone before I go back to my own time. I'll swing by Capsule Corp in three days. I'm going to visit Gohan and meet Chi Chi," Trunks said. Vegeta nodded.

"See ya then, kid. I'm gonna go fuck your mother," he said, with a sudden smirk.

"I did not need to hear that…" Trunks said. Vegeta grinned wolfishly and took off for home.

He landed by the pool long after the sun had set and walked into the household. The AI on the doors recognized him and obediently let him in. He walked quietly down the familiar halls, sensing for her ki. She was with their infant son, in her quarters… baby Trunks' ki was so much larger than his mother's.

Stepping quietly into her workshop, he started pulling off his armour plating, placing it on top of the desk they always used to practice writing at. Three years ago, for him. A year ago, for her.

Then he pushed the door open to their room. It had changed totally from when he was there last. The walls were a mild pastel green instead of lilac, the curtains a darker green instead of white, and her bedspread a cool robin's egg blue with white trim, instead of purple, the décor broken by what appeared to be… a life-sized, stuffed pillow printed with a picture of himself and one of his shirts... The couch had been reupholstered in dark green leather, and there was some kind of … baby contraption in the middle of the room, and scattered toys on the floor. He could sense his boy sleeping in the thing. And Bulma was on the couch, reading, underneath the lamp.

She looked up when he entered the room, and stood up, book falling to the couch. She took two steps towards him and froze, nose wrinkling. "I installed a shower in that ship…" she said.

He smirked. "I know, but I've just spent a long time training and fighting. I used the shower in the ship, honest, and I bathed in the hyperbolic time chamber, too, but it's been days. Come on, get your hot little ass in the shower, with me. I haven't had a good back scrubbing in three years."

She rolled her eyes at him, with her hands on her hips, but she grinned. "Yeah we'd better get you clean before your stench wakes the baby. At least he sleeps through most noise." And she started taking off her clothes, which was what he wanted to see. He got out of the suit, tossing it in the laundry basket and wondering if laundering it would even do the trick. Bulma was right, that outfit stank. He'd let the bots figure it out.

Pregnancy had been kind to Bulma. Her hips and breasts were fuller, and her stomach had already flattened out. If she'd gained a lot of weight while carrying Trunks, it seemed she'd already lost it all. As far as he was concerned, she was flawless. She looked like the hottest thing he'd ever laid eyes on, and he couldn't keep his hands off her in the shower. Then he couldn't keep himself out of her in the shower, with her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck, and her back against the wall, both of them pretty much ignoring the water entirely, until they were both shouting out each other's names in ecstasy. Gods, he would never stop wanting her.

They finished up and dried off, and it was honestly good to be clean again after so much sweat, blood, dirt, and smashed up rocks. But there was a bed in the other room, and he was ready to go again, and it had been three years since he'd last spent a night with the woman he loved. Yeah, he loved her. He could admit it now. Two more people had come to occupy that spot in his heart, the vacuum left when his father had died. Bulma, and Trunks. And right now, he wanted her underneath him, badly.

They marched each other back to the bedroom, falling into bed with a giggle on her part and a grin on his. He kicked the covers and that stupid pillow off the bed and kissed her, hands everywhere. "Ow, be careful with my boobs," she cautioned, "I'm still breastfeeding."

"Noted," he said, and caressed her hips. He loved that shapely heinie of hers. He loved pretty much all of her. He especially loved making love to her, and she was every bit as hungry for him as he was for her. After they both came twice, he paused, enjoying the feel of her in his arms. "I think you missed me," he said, grinning.

She moaned a little, and then tightened her arms around him. "Of course, I missed you," she said. He kissed her, savouring her body against his own.

"I missed you, too," he said, softly. In the soft moonlight, he could see her eyes on him, searching. She smiled softly, and it seemed almost a sad smile. He kissed her again, feeling like the world was swaying. "There's something I need to tell you…" he started, and then swallowed, suddenly feeling nervous, heart pounding. She looked at him, waiting. He didn't know how to put this into words. He took a deep breath.

"When Cell killed Trunks, I snapped," he began. "Since my father died, nothing and nobody mattered to me but getting stronger. Strong enough to defeat Frieza, and then strong enough to humiliate Kakarot. Strong enough to take on any comer and win. Nothing else. But when Cell killed Trunks, I had a realization. I'd been wrong."

She waited for him, and he appreciated it beyond measure. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. "There is someone who matters to me. Two someones. You, Bulma… and Trunks. Both of him." He took another deep breath. "I'm glad I didn't die without getting a chance to say this. Bulma, I love you. I know I'm an ass, sometimes, a jerk… but I love you and I want to make this work with you. I… want to marry you…"

She reached up and caressed his cheek in the darkness. "I love you, Vegeta," she said, softly. "I'll marry you. Give me some time to plan that shit," she paused. "I've never loved anyone or anything like I love you, you know."

"I didn't know," he confessed, "until Trunks told me. I didn't think anyone could. I mean, I haven't exactly been a great person."

"Maybe not, but you can be," she whispered.

"Do you really think so?" It was an intriguing idea. He snorted. "I mean, let's face it, I don't think I'm going to stop being an asshole…" Or turn down a fight, let's be real.

"Who says you have to?" she purred. "I fell in love with you, as you are. You are a sexy Mister Badman. And you're my hero, Prince Vegeta."

It made him feel all warm inside. He kissed her, feeling himself stir. "So, do you still have that senzu bean stuff?" he asked. She nodded in the darkness with a soft affirmative. "Perfect, because I am not done with you," he growled, grinning, and pounced, delighting in her aroused laugh.

Some time later they had to take a break because Trunks was crying, and Bulma insisted that he needed fed. She turned a lamp on and took the baby to the bathroom and changed his diaper on the little padded dresser that had been installed in the room while he was gone, and then proceeded to feed him on the bed. His periwinkle-haired son sucked greedily, occasionally flashing him speculative looks. He thought they might be speculative looks. He wasn't all that sure about infant facial expressions. Other than the stink-eye the kid had been tossing him at the Lookout.

When the boy had had a go at each breast, Bulma held him, rocking him and singing soft little songs. Trunks quieted down, still looking mostly at his mother, but still flashing Vegeta curious looks.

"Do you want to hold him?" she asked.

"I… don't know how…" he admitted. He'd never had anything to do with babies. He tried not to think about his former life as a planet killer.

She put the boy in his arms and demonstrated what to do. At first Trunks fussed, but after a little while, the kid was smiling and trying to grab his face, and then did grab his fingers, in a surprisingly strong grip. "Hey, Trunks, I'm your daddy, Vegeta!" he said, softly. This was amazing. He had a kid. With a woman he loved. And his kid would grow up to be a strong, powerful warrior.

Eventually the baby fell asleep again, and Bulma put him back in the baby contraption, which she called a 'bassinet'. Then she took him by the hand, and they curled up together in bed. It was late enough that he knew he shouldn't seduce her any further.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there," he said, before they drifted off to sleep.

"You wouldn't have liked the first few months," she said, tiredly. "I didn't get any sleep at all. At times I was ready to strangle him. But it got better. He sometimes sleeps through the whole night, now. And Mom was and is a huge help. She says he's an easy baby. Boy, did she ever have the baby rabies pretty bad."

Baby rabies… heh. "Was anyone there?"

"Mom, Dad… Krillin…" she said.

Wait… what? "Krillin?" he said, incredulous.

"Yeah, he just happened to stop by to see how I was doing the day I went into labour with Trunks and stayed for the delivery. He brought me balloons. I think he was in a bigger panic than anyone else when I started, it was hilarious." She snorted softly. "You should have seen his face when he saw the baby bump. He was stuck on a broken record for a bit. I sent him home to Master Roshi after, but I appreciate that he stuck around while I was in labour. I made him promise not to tell anyone else, I wanted it to be a surprise. Somehow Goku knew, though." She thought for a moment. "Future Trunks probably told him."

He felt like a serious jerk, right then, and wasn't exactly all right with it. Krillin had been there, when his woman delivered his child. "At least it wasn't the weakling," he grumbled.

"Fuck no," was Bulma's reply, and then, smugly, "not gonna lie, I enjoyed it when he saw Trunks and did the math."

Vegeta gave an amused snort. He didn't think he'd ever like that guy… although… in a way, it was that guy being an asshole that had started what he and Bulma had become. Wow. Life was strange, sometimes. Strange, but good. It was the thought that carried him off to sleep, his woman in his arms for the first time in three years.

* * *

 

It was the best sleep Bulma'd had in a year. Oh God, it was good to have Vegeta back home. And… holy crap, he'd somehow done the one thing she never expected, never even hoped for. He'd fallen in love with her, too. Married… damn. Well, she wanted a proper ring and a proper proposal, maybe there'd be some way to drop a hint to him, maybe through her mom… but yeah, she was going to marry Vegeta. Their next kids… if there were any others… would not be born to a single mother.

She'd started birth control again a month ago, just in case. She wasn't in a hurry for any next kids. Trunks was handful enough as it is. Having a baby with superhuman strength was occasionally awkward and troublesome.

She woke up before he did, at sunrise, already knowing Trunks would be stirring. It felt good to be trapped in bed by Vegeta again – the pillow had just not been enough, too cool and not heavy enough. She recalled the look on his face when he kicked it off the bed and smiled. It had done its job and would find its home in a closet somewhere; the real thing was so much better.

Trunks murmured angrily. He was waking up, and he was hungry and probably needed changed. She was about to have an angry baby on her hands if she didn't get out of bed.

Bulma shifted under Vegeta's limbs. His eyes flew open, pupils contracting and focusing on her. He then closed his eyes and grabbed her closer, making a groaning sound.

"Vegeta, if you don't let me up, your son is going to get very angry, very quickly," she said, cheerfully.

"Huh?" he murmured. Then he sat up. "Trunks!"

She chuckled. "He's fine. He just needs changed and fed." The murmuring had started into cranky baby sounds. She got up, and Vegeta did too, following her around and watching intently as she went about changing Trunks. She taught him how to change diapers. Who knows, he might even do it. He had a shower while she fed the baby, and then she left him holding Trunks while she took a shower.

Dressed, they walked down to the dining room together, Vegeta carrying his son.

"Morning Mom, Dad," she greeted as they entered the dining room. Her dad had stopped smoking for Trunks and was puffing on an e-cig. Her mom was having coffee. Both looked up and brightened when they saw Vegeta.

"Morning honey, ohhh welcome home, Vegeta!" Panchy gushed, rising from her chair. She actually hugged Vegeta and kissed him on the cheek, while the poor man stood there looking slightly confused. She then took Trunks from him, and Vegeta seemed like he might protest, but Panchy was cooing and playing with Trunks. "There's my handsome little grandson, look at youuuuu…"

"Welcome back, Vegeta. How was space?" her father asked. "Did you get what you went for?"

"Yes," Vegeta replied, sitting in the chair that had been his since he first arrived at Bulma's residence. "Thank you."

"Well, I had better get a few dozen eggs going, because I wasn't expecting your daddy at the breakfast table," Panchy said, to Trunks, who cooed and tried to grab her earrings. "Gonna have to put in a big grocery order for supper!"

Bulma took her son back from her mother, who disappeared into the kitchen and came back with some coffee for both her and Vegeta, and then vanished again.

She came out again with a massive pile of food. Vegeta thanked her and started eating. Bulma tried to get some food in with Trunks attempting to grab from her plate. Panchy came out with some mashed banana for the boy, which he shoved into his mouth with gusto. Vegeta watched, entranced.

"Need a hand?" he asked, pausing in his attack on the eggs and toast.

"Naw, I can handle this," she said.

"Oh yeah," Vegeta said, when Panchy had returned to the table with a new pot of coffee. "Uhhh… Future Trunks said he'd come here to say goodbye to everyone before he took his time machine back to his own time," he said. "he should be here in three days."

"Everyone, huh?" Panchy said. "I had better put in a big order."

Bulma smiled. Somewhere out there, Goku was no doubt grinning – he always knew Vegeta would come around. She still hurt a little at the thought of Goku being gone, but something told her it wouldn't be permanent this time. And now, Vegeta was back, alive, and life was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there you have it.
> 
> Like I said, I haven't watched the anime. I read the manga, which leaves out a _lot_ in terms of character development and personal relationships in order to focus on fights. I'm starting to watch Super now, and I think the animators were just in love the notion of a gruff, asshole Vegeta who acts like a prick all the time. In the manga it shows that it's clearly some kind of act - when the deciding piece of information for him to jump in on the Potara fusion (which is permanent) with _Goku_ , his greatest rival, is the _death of his wife_ , I think it's safe to say that his concern for her is _real_. Real enough that he would forgo his own personal _existence_ to avenge her, and maybe give her the chance to be resurrected by a dragonball somewhere, somehow, even though he would be permanently gone. I'd say that's love. 
> 
> My spin on Vegeta is a man who is closed in any kind of public situation but opens up in private, among people he feels he can trust. He's had a rough life prior to Earth, one in which he would never have had a friend and never anything more than temporary allies. Frieza's army is not exactly a nurturing environment for anyone to grow up in. I suspect the armour only came off in private, but that in private, he must have been intensely loving in his own way. He had a lifetime of neglect to make up for. 
> 
> So I hope you've enjoyed my take on VeggieBul over the 3 year gap. I might write a hyperbolic time chamber Goku/Vegeta yaoi because honestly, 3 years with one's frenemy/rival could easily flip over into something else. And with both of these guys, I don't think it would be an either/or thing over their wives and each other, I think they'd find some way to conceptualize the bromance in a way that doesn't cut things off with their wives. Except for maybe Chichi, but I don't think Goku is SMART enough to understand why she'd be upset in the first place.


End file.
